Blaine Absolutely Knew He Was In Love
by Corriebird
Summary: "Blaine steps forward and whispers in Kurt's ear, "If it's not exclusive, then what's to stop you?" Kurt's eyes flare and he inhales sharply, so he steps back and heads to the bathroom without looking back.This is what life is, right? This is what it means to be alone, to be lonely. Taking what you can get. Sucking the marrow out, even if it'll break your heart later." 4.14 fic!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Do not own characters, merely rent. Have not paid rent in some time. not sorry. _

_Also: This is clearly a blow by blow 4.14 fic, loosely still based in the world from "Blaine Didn't Know He Was In Love"-so if you don't know why he's asking about Intergalactic space beacons, read that story. Otherwise, everything's either canon or SHOULD BE CANON. I took some liberties, but tried to keep it as close to the episode as possible. I didn't include anything from those Kitty spying videos, as I haven't seen them. So if Tina tells Blaine on her own time that she vapo-raped him, well, great, but this fic doesn't take that into account. _

_So far, and I'm not finished yet, this whole thing is about 13,000 words, so we've got a ways to go. Lots of sex. (what? I didn't say that)._

_Thanks so much for reading!_

* * *

Blaine thinks he should have seen Mr. Shue asking the glee club to cover entertainment for the wedding coming. There's only so many proms, so many proposals, so many big events that they lend their voices to before it becomes expected.

He texts Kurt—they've gotten back into the habit of texting. They're friends, and friends text. They've been texting a lot lately, but friends text a lot, about what they have for breakfast, what they think of that girl's outfit on the subway, about the movie on lifetime last night. So he texts Kurt: **Shue is having us sing for wedding. Duet w/ me? ;)**

Kurt must be walking or in his apartment or in a boring class because he texts back immediately, **Of course! We'll have to practice, though. Come to my house before the wedding; I'll be in my room, getting ready. ;-)** Kurt always adds noses to his smiley faces. Blaine had started too, but he secretly likes seeing it when Kurt does it, when only Kurt does it, like it's Kurt's thing. He doesn't want to take it away and make it not as special.

Blaine smiles, reading the text over, biting his bottom lip, _practice, _they have to _practice_—just like the first time, when they _practiced_, for half an hour, _practicing _in Dalton's senior commons, until a group of freshmen came in—

Tina leans over, whispers something, and he nods, but has no idea what she says.

And Kurt will be in his _room._

Shue is still talking. Jesus, this man never shuts up. He should still be in D.C., with the other windbags. That is not a charitable thought, Blaine reminds himself. Mr. Shue is a good teacher. He means well. And it is good now, when he looks down at his phone, he can still see kurt's last text. In his room, practicing. Kurt wants him to come over, to do a duet.

When Shue asks for suggestions on the group number at the end of the week, Blaine's hand shoots up.

"Anything Can Happen, by Ellie Goulding." He can't help but smile, and bite his lip again, and bounce a little. Tina throws him a look, and he shrugs. "What? The alumni will be back, and it's a wedding, and it'll be Valentine 's Day, and it seems—appropriate."

Ryder chimes in, "Yeah, Valentine's day. Anything can happen on Valentine's Day!"

Marley says something about the X Factor, and Fifth Harmony, and he's saved. He nods. Yes, he liked that version a lot too, but he doesn't say anything because Kurt mentioned that he didn't like a number of performances in X Factor, and he thinks Fifth Harmony's was one of them.

Still, that's the big number they start preparing, and Blaine feels a thumping in his chest, all week, and every time they sing the song he can imagine Kurt somehow moving closer and closer.

Kurt's coming; Kurt's coming; Kurt's coming home.

* * *

When Blaine comes over to Kurt's house before the wedding, he thinks he might split out of his skin. He isn't going to Sam's room, or to the living room—he's going to _Kurt's room_. He can feel Kurt's proximity, can feel the light of it, the beacon of it. He clenches and unclenches his knuckles around the hanger of his suit that he'll use later.

He's gotten out of school a little early to rehearse with Kurt, just an hour, but it'll mean that he can get dressed here. He'll be cutting it a little close, especially if he's going to pick up Tina, but still, the prospect of seeing Kurt, of singing with Kurt is too much to do what he's supposed to and play it safe. These steps are so familiar. Worn carpeting. He says hello to Sam in the living room, but his body is moving, magnetized, in a fluid line, and he can't stop even though it looks like Sam might want to stop and talk, and he thinks he makes a "Sorry, but I'm being pulled this way" face, and Sam laughs and makes a shoving motion, and then he's at Kurt's door, knocking softly, poking his head in.

Kurt's sitting at his dressing table, doing something with his hair. He's just in his undershirt and dress pants. At first he just sees Kurt, and he smells Kurt, and he slips into the room and is so happy and trying not to look like too much of a sap that it takes all of his energy. The magnetized feeling settles now that they're both in the same room.

And then he actually looks at Kurt.

Oh man, this is going to be a problem. The last time Blaine saw Kurt he'd been so twisted up from—_don't think about it don't think about it _—that he hadn't been thinking about Kurt this way.

Kurt turns when he sets down his suit on the bed—the bed, the bed, oh man, oh shit—and Kurt's long neck flexes and flares. His shoulders are broad and his upper arms lift effortlessly as they comb an errant piece of hair back into place. His fingers, his fingers. Fuck, his fingers, opening him up, those long fingers, tracing him, his fingers-

"Blaine?" Kurt says, making a small questioning movement with his head.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry. Just. You look really great." Blaine is having trouble because everywhere he looks is _something else to look at._

Kurt smirks a little. "Dance class five days a week with a competent teacher will do that for you, I guess."

Blaine chuckles, because he remembers times last year when he had this exact problem, and there was that time when Kurt got into one pieces for a while—"No, I think looking ridiculously hot is a permanent condition for you." Blaine is surprised at himself, but he feels a little flare of pride too. Tell it like it is, Anderson, tell it like it is. That's right.

Kurt's eyebrows merely lift, and he tilts his head down and to the side with a small "hmm," and that _is_ different. Last year Kurt would have flushed and choked a little bit. He turns back to the mirror. He says, "I chose a song that's fairly simple, so it won't take us too much to get it right."

"Great," Blaine says, as he shrugs out of his coat. Kurt gets up in one sinuous movement, swinging his long legs over the stool, and Blaine knows he's _doomed_, and they get to work.

An hour later they've gotten the vocals down and are working on a series of easy steps. It's not hard, like Kurt promised. But they've gone over it many more times than necessary anyway, and dancing around Kurt's room, using Kurt's hairbrushes for microphones, putting extra steps into it. It's so much fun. He feels a little bad because Tina's called a couple times and finally Kurt says that he doesn't think the schedule will give them enough time for Blaine to pick her up. They'll just meet at the church, and he'll just drive over with Kurt. She should be happy for him. But that's swept to the back of his mind, because Kurt keeps glancing over at him when he thinks he may not notice, Blaine doesn't say anything about it, but he holds it close to him, anyway, biting his lip against it, letting his hand linger a little longer because of it. When they dance they're holding hands, recklessly backing into each other for some light grinding before stepping away again, gripping at hips and backs, and Kurt does that hip shimmy—the same one he does to wiggle out of really tight jeans.

Mostly, though, they're joking, laughing. "What the hell kind of move was that, Anderson?" says Kurt, panting, laughing, his head thrown back, his eyes glimmering.

"The two step, the two step!" Blaine lurches forward, pressing his forehead against Kurt's shoulder, wheezing and laughing.

"You can take the man out of Dalton, but can't take Dalton out of the man—" Kurt grabs Blaine's shoulders and stands him upright. "Like this, B, like this." He makes Blaine move with him, holding his shoulders and then holding Blaine's hips for him.

Blaine inhales into Kurt's neck, inhales the smell of Kurt's sweat, his aftershave, his bodywash. He wishes he had enough time to separate all the scents out so that he could pinpoint the exact smell of his cells, his very skin. He murmurs, "Is this fancy New York Dancing? Are you teaching me trade secrets?"

Kurt snorts. "I'm teaching you things you already know." He brings his head back and gives Blaine a look.

Blaine grins. "I can't help that I'm a natural." He takes Kurt's hand off his hip and gives him a spin. "C'mon mister fancy pants. Let's give this song one more go."

This last time they do the song they start out dancing, but Kurt tugs at him, maybe to show him another move, and they're singing "I just can't enough" and he's mirroring Kurt and Kurt's mirroring him, and he doesn't know who's starting which move, which jump is who's, "I just can't get enough," and, "this is a burning love, and I just can't get enough of you," and they're spinning each other, slap happy, laughing, "I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough" and then the song's over and they've ended up a breath's distance apart, hot eyes, heavy breathing, and he feels so needy, like he might break apart, so Blaine says, low in his throat, "I just can't get enough, Kurt, god."

Kurt's eyes are boring into his, and he inhales, almost to say something, when his phone buzzes and breaks the silence. "Shit," Kurt says, "That's my hour alarm." He looks at his phone and then back to Blaine, his gaze roaming everywhere from his hair to his eyes, and stopping on his neck. "You need to hop in the—in the shower. You're," he runs a finger along Blaine's neck, and it comes up wet, "You're sweating," he says in a whisper. His eyes come to rest on Baine's mouth. They're still so close.

Blaine wants to screw the wedding and keep Kurt in this room. "Kurt—"

"Blaine. Blaine," Kurt's shaking his head, taking a step back. "Blaine, No. No, I have a—well a sort of boyfriend."

Blaine rolls his eyes. "That Adam guy, you told me about him. I don't know why—it doesn't seem like you like him that much, if you were ok with a non exclusive relationship."

Kurt lifts an eyebrow. "Things work differently in New York."

Blaine steps forward and whispers in Kurt's ear, "If it's not exclusive, then what's to stop you?" Kurt's eyes flare and he inhales sharply, so he steps back, picks up his suit, and heads to the bathroom without looking back. He knows where the towels and extra toiletries are—he's been here enough times, he practically lives here.

In the shower he wonders why he would be ok being Kurt's other man, and why it's ok for Kurt to go back to this Adam in New York when the weekend's over. He knows Kurt will.

Blaine laughs. In the shower. Out loud. He sings, "I just can't get enough. This is a burning love. I just can't get enough of you." Kurt Hummel cannot get enough of one Blaine Devon Anderson-Warbler. Nor should he. Nor will he. Kurt may be stubborn. And he may be hurt. And he may be exploring his possibilities; he may have a new life in New York without Blaine and he probably sees this Adam character more often. Possibly Adam is nice enough.

But Blaine knows, and Kurt knows too, that he and Blaine are soulmates. They both know that what they have is more than a thousand Adams. And this year sucks for a million reasons, but like Tina said whenever she said it: they're young, they have time to figure out how to live, how to make things work. So Blaine is going to play by whatever rules Kurt wants to play by, because ultimately, they're going to keep coming back to each other.

When he gets out of the shower he realizes he forgot deodorant, and he can't find any extra, so he wraps a towel around his waist and pads into Kurt's room. Kurt's gotten most of his suit on, by this point, and Blaine casually leans against the door, posing just a little—because Kurt may not admit to working out but Blaine sure has—while he pretends not to notice Kurt pretty much _devour _him with his eyes.

When the silence has stretched out longer than he could make an excuse for, he says, "Do you have extra deodorant?"

Kurt pauses, then merely lifts his head an infitesimal amount and hands over his personal deodorant without a thought, without saying anything, making Blaine come to him. Blaine strolls over to him, on the other side of the room, the towel to shifting a little lower down his hips. He takes the deodorant from Kurt, keeping his eyes on Kurt the whole time, lifts his arms and rolls it on, watching Kurt watching him. "Thanks," he says, and hands it back.

They're magnetized to each other. They're each other's beacons. It's just the way it is.

* * *

Kurt is going to _kill_ Tina.

She has been calling nonstop all afternoon. How does Blaine stand it? He doesn't seem to notice, either. Every-time Kurt starts saying anything even remotely personal—anything remotely hedging towards how lonely he sometimes feels, in New York, which he just can't come out and say, but which he knows that Blaine would understand, and which he's been wanting someone to understand—every single time Tina's called. Is this how Adam feels when he texts with Blaine? He didn't think it was that bad, but on Monday, when Blaine had texted and asked if they could duet together, Kurt had been having coffee with Adam and Adam had mentioned that game that some people play where they put their phone in the middle of the table and the first person who answers has to pay the bill.

But really, there is no way Blaine could be as annoying as Tina. "Blainers, when are you picking me up?" "Blainey, what color is the corsage?" "Blaine-ttes, are you sure you're picking me up?" and then, "Bl-aaine, maybe you and Kurt shouldn't do your duet if it's taking you this long to practice, I'm sure we could fill the slot with something."

And that's just when they're working on Vocals.

Finally he grabs Blaine's phone and tells her that he'll be the one driving Blaine over, because practice ran long. Then he shuts Blaine's phone off.

Blaine looks at him like the sun came out after a hundred years of rain, and Kurt has a hard time looking away. He had forgotten how expressive Blaine's eyes were. That's not true—he hadn't forgotten it, but he'd remembered it only in the past—how expressive they'd been in certain situations, certain past situations. Now here they are, beaming at him, reaching out towards him, and it's almost too much.

Almost, but not quite.

Part of Kurt wants to drown in them. Part of him wants to run because he'd screwed up so badly, before. He'd let Blaine down, before. He knows that it was Blaine's fault, for what happened, but it wouldn't have been Blaine's fault if he had been more reachable, if he had been around more. He'd been so caught up in fashion, in New York, and Blaine had suffered.

Blaine needs a lot, Kurt knows that. He puts everything he has into his love. What else was that stupid Gap attack? He throws everything he's got into one person. Kurt's not sure—he's not sure he can be what Blaine needs.

In New York he feels so small, sometimes. He feels so scattered. He won Midnight Madness, and he's making friends, but sometimes he walks down the streets and he feels so gloomy, he feels so depressed. There are days when he doesn't want to go to class, even though class, NYADA, these people (that he mostly doesn't like) was the whole _point_. He doesn't know what's wrong, and until he knows what's wrong he doesn't think it's fair to saddle Blaine with this weird, snuffling, oddly bent man.

Blaine looks at him like he's the fucking _answer_ and how can he say, I'm not. I'm not the answer.

And yet, on the other hand, Blaine looks so _good._ Blaine looks like the place where Kurt could just bury himself inside and feel safe and secure and wonderful and happy and good again.

So they're dancing, they're touching and Kurt lets go, feels that little tight rock in his chest let go, just for a short time. It's unconscious on his part—first he's irritated, then frustrated, then mad as hell at Tina, then they're singing, then they're laughing, then they're dancing, then they're dancing even _more_—and then the knot in his chest is dissolving and it's not until his phone buzzes at him that he realizes he'd forgotten it was ever there in the first place.

He's told Blaine about Adam before. He told Blaine about Adam after the first few dates because he thought, _there, ok, now we can be proper friends. I've moved on. I'm dating someone new. _That's why he started texting Blaine again, regularly. When he told Adam about it Adam nodded and said, "Sure, sure. I mean, we're not exclusive, right?" and Kurt had said, "Blaine and I are exes, Adam, I promise. It's a good thing you and I are going out. This lets me talk with him safely. We're just friends. I promise, it's better this way." Adam had nodded.

So he told Blaine, and Blaine had squinted through skype, looking like he was holding his breath, "Does it feel like you're magneticized around him? Like he's an intergalactic space beacon?"

And Kurt had given him a blank stare. "Blaine. I haven't been reading the same comic books you've been reading." He pauses. "But no. I don't know. I don't think so." He grinned, trying to change the subject. "Really? Intergalactic Space Beacon? What _have_ you been reading?" What was it Sam had said? Blaine was going around as a Bird of the Night? NightBird? In spandex? Probably in spandex, and Blaine's always had a good ass for that sort of thing, good legs for that sort of thing, in fact he's got a good stomach and good arms too, but if he's wearing a cape then it would hide it all. That would be a problem, he should probably get rid of the cape, and Kurt can feel himself sinking into a drawing for a superhero outfit that would show off Blaine perfectly-

Blaine huffed out, and said, "Well, I guess that's something." Then, he said, "Does he make you happy. I guess that's what I'm asking." _Does he make you happy._ What kind of question was that.

Kurt had frowned. They were supposed to be talking about Blaine reading trashy comic books with too many busty ladies and not enough chisel-jawed men. "I don't know, it's only been a couple dates." Maybe it would be ok if he only read about busty ladies. No worry there.

And Blaine shrugged and said, through the grainy screen of the skype call, "Kurt, you always made me happy. That day I saw you on the stairs, your outfit. I thought it was the most adorable thing— you were such a bad spy." He laughed. "And then we'd go out to coffee, or go to the movies, and I'd wonder why the rest of my friends didn't make me feel like a million bucks the way you did. Even before I knew I loved you, you made me happy. I wanted to be around you all the time. I wanted to leap on furniture when you were around because I could barely contain myself, even though I couldn't have told you _why.._. So yes, Kurt. I think he should make you happy. Even if it's only been a few dates."

Kurt had this feeling, watching Blaine try to hide his face with half his hand, embarrassed, like he should say something similar back. He opened his mouth, but what came out was, "I think I may have an idea for your next superhero outfit. Let me know when you wear the old one out."

And Blaine had said, "Kurt. I can never have too many superhero outfits. What did you have in mind?"

But even after they had devolved into laughter over an argument about whether or not to include a cape—even after the call had ended on good terms, Kurt had sat on his bed, knees to his chest, his face flushed, feeling wrong, feeling sick, feeling like he was a square peg in a round hole, and not knowing what the hell to do about it, and not knowing why, exactly, he felt that way. He could blame Blaine's call, blame Blaine, but he'd known all that before. Blaine had told him all about his feelings before, in almost those exact words, too. He thought, curled up like that, that he might always feel weirdly uncomfortable, and had a hard time remembering when he didn't. He remembered the fights he and Blaine had, the locker checks when Karofsky was still in the closet, the getting tossed into dumpsters, the days after his mother died. He thought about those.

But now, dancing in his room with Blaine, those are the furthest things from his mind. Why would he think of those very small, insignificantly bad times now? In fact, there's a moment during the second run through when he decides to pull himself up out of his funk when he gets back to New York. _Clearly I was wallowing. Not enough sunlight. Not enough fresh air._ _I should try out for more clubs. _Then Blaine takes his hand and spins him again and he lets out an undignified shriek, missing his cue for the next line, laughing, catching up.

The last dance is something all its own, and Kurt drowns.

When they stop dancing, when the music ends, when Blaine says, "I just can't get enough, God, Kurt," husky and deep, almost a whisper, Kurt feels like he's exactly where he should be, but he doesn't think about it like that. He just feels alive, in his body, his every cell humming, his every sense concentrating on the man in front of him. He's thinking about what Blaine wants (probably sex) what Blaine needs (someone to be there for him, emotionally, constantly), what Blaine's thinking about (definitely Kurt, probably sex, probably something like "soul mates", too, or "destined to be together," because Blaine's a diehard romantic).

When his phone buzzes Kurt looks away, looks back, and unconsciously chooses the easiest of any of those to focus on. It's been months and months since he's had sex, since he and Blaine have had sex. He's kept Adam at an arm's length for right now because they're so busy, because the apartment has _no_ privacy, because he doesn't know exactly how to do things when the other person isn't Blaine, because they've only been dating for three weeks.

But here, the person is Blaine. And Kurt is here too, fully alive and fluid feeling, comfortable, happy, laughing the way he hasn't laughed since—_don't think about it, don't think about it _—since a long time. This is what life is, right? This is what it means to be alone, to be lonely. Taking what you can get. Seeing what that brings you. Sucking the marrow out of life even if it breaks your heart later.

He asks Blaine by touching him. He mentions Adam.

Blaine says, "If it's not exclusive, then what's to stop you?" and heads to the shower without a backwards glance.

When Blaine comes back out in nothing but a towel, asking for deodorant, Kurt's mouth goes dry and he hands his own over on autopilot, even though he would never, normally, allow anyone else to use his deodorant. Blaine holds his gaze. He knows. Kurt knows. They have no _time_, but they know.

* * *

_A/N:__Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are always welcome! Up next, the making out in the car, and the wedding, and the reception! _


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Does not own Blaine's beautiful ass that looks like it's been baked to perfection with a cherry on top-merely hungers after it. _

_Also, thank you for your views, your favorites, and your follows! I hope you've been enjoying this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it! (**Sailingaway11: **thanks so much for your continued support!) _

_a little bit into the chapter I reference Ski Ballet, which can be watched on Youtube if you just search for "ski ballet + Fabrice Becker__." It's really wonderful, and I highly recommend it. _

* * *

Sam hitches a ride over to the church with them. He's talking and babbling about Spiderman and doing impressions, and Blaine is twisting around to laugh at those impressions—Blaine thinks they're _ funny, _and maybe they are, but he can't help tightening his hands around the steering wheel just a little bit. They're talking about all these things that have happened since he's been gone, the food drive they did together, and how long it took to get the paint out of their hair (what?) and he can't help it that when they get to the church he puts a hand out when Blaine goes to unbuckle, and finds himself saying, "Sam, we'll see you inside." He knew that they both knew what was coming, but he didn't think it would happen this soon.

Blaine jerks his head to the side, eyes widening and mouth open, like he's surprised. Sam flicks his eyes between them, and Kurt thinks he sees Blaine nod, smiling, and then, thank God, Sam is gone, and Kurt says, in a low voice, "Get in the back."

Blaine gets in the back in less than five seconds.

As Kurt nonchalantly follows him, eyeing the other people, trying to look like he's not about to have a hot gay friends-with-benefits make out in the back seat of Blaine's car, he thinks, _yeah, a church parking lot, that's about right. Take that, Church/Pope/whoever you are. Take that. _

And then he doesn't think anything at all because he's climbing over Blaine, and he's looking down on those beautiful, wide eyes, and he's leaning down and saying, "This doesn't mean anything. It's just—it's just friends." He waits for Blaine to nod before letting their mouths slide together, move together, and Blaine's been using pomegranate chap-stick and is all smooth and tart and wonderful.

It's heaven. It's grabbing and sliding and grinding and _Blaine's mouth_. It's electricity all over him, needing more, constantly needing more. It was always like this, this feeling like they needed more.

The Problem is that there are too many clothes. That's always the problem. But he can feel Blaine's cock hardening through both of their slacks, and he rocks his own hard-on down against it, sucking Blaine's moan into his mouth. Blaine's got his hands pulling at Kurt's shirt, running up Kurt's back, and Kurt arches against them, feeling goosepimples forming.

"Blaine, yes."

"Kurt-mmhumm."

Kurt feels like he's making very undignified sounds as they grind together, but he just can't help it, he feels like the "uh uh uhs" are coming from him, but when he pulls back he thinks maybe they're coming from _both_ of them, because Blaine is arching up into him too, and groaning into kisses, too.

At one point he tries to pull back, to make a joke about looking like prom on the morning after, because he thought he would be able to hold out a little longer than the parking lot, _God_, and sometime after that Blaine says the phrase "Bros helping Bros" which doesn't reassure Kurt of his understanding of the friends with benefits thing so much as it turns him on even further. They both remember that time last year when all they watched was Jersey Shore, they had all the episodes saved on their laptops and they watched them in a continuous loop, any spare moment was devoted to those horrible people, and several make-out sessions too, god it was so hot, they even dressed up like two of the people for Halloween and had to come home early because Blaine kept talking with that accent, like he's some idiot beefcake, even though he's not, and the juxtaposition just drove Kurt up the wall, and Kurt just kept wanting to kiss that mouth that said those things in that way, which he does now, he mauls it, practically, he needs to get to Blaine's skin, god damn this tie, didn't he already deal with this—

And then someone knocks on the window, and if it's Tina again, he will shoot her.

No, it is not Tina. It is Mercedes. This is her first time cockblocking today, and she may have a point about the wedding starting.

They crawl out of the car, Blaine hopping up and down a little, and Kurt knows he's trying to get his cock to sit right in his underwear without adjusting it himself. Kurt folds his coat in front of him and doesn't look at either of them when he says, "Oh Mercedes, everyone hooks up at weddings."

After he says it he realizes that it's true. Lots of movies have been done about hooking up at weddings. It's practically a law. That is what he is doing. Good Work, Kurt Hummel. You are engaging in the time honored tradition of Hooking Up At Weddings. You have planned this ahead of time. It is not weird. It is expected.

Blaine is grinning and still hopping a little every once in a while, and Kurt wishes he would just reach into his pants and do a quick adjust. Or he'll do it for him, if it comes to that. Before they get into the church Kurt pulls him over to the side.

"Are you ok?" he asks.

"Kurt, I'm fantastic," Blaine says, trying not to smile, but his eyes giving himself away.

Kurt shakes his head sadly. "You're such a sap." Blaine's hair is a mess, so he spits a little into his hand and carefully recombs it back into place. "There. Better."

Blaine looks at Kurt's hair, too, and helps him with an extra strand that had fallen out of place. "You too."

Kurt finishes tucking his shirt in. "Do I look too rumpled?"

Blaine smiles even bigger, if that's possible. "I like it when you look rumpled."

"Blaine." Kurt rolls his eyes.

"Kurt." Blaine rolls his eyes.

"Fine. Get in there before Tina hacks into your bank accounts and forges your signature on a number of important documents." Blaine twists his face into confusion, but Kurt plants his hands on his shoulders and turns him around, shoving him down the aisle. Blaine laughs, turns around, and watches Kurt for a moment, before turning back and looking for Tina.

Tina does not look terribly happy, but then she sees Blaine and she smiles, scooting over in the pew.

Kurt finds his mouth puckering, frowning. This is oddly reminiscent of Rachel, years ago, except Blaine actually may have liked Rachel, that was the real trouble. Kurt knows that Blaine doesn't actually like Tina as anything more than a friend. Rachel was just herself—He frowns.

And then Rachel is there, beside him, yammering on about Finn this and Finn that, except that she doesn't say anything specific enough to be interesting. And then the service is starting, and Becky is throwing flower petals, which is bizarre and violent and aren't flower girls supposed to be younger than nineteen? Kurt feels like maybe they should.

And then the wedding doesn't happen at all.

But it doesn't really matter, because he can still feel Blaine's breath, hot on his neck. And he can feel Blaine's gaze, across the church, even during the fiasco of Sue walking down the aisle. Blaine's watching him, he knows it. He doesn't turn to look because—because it's so warm. He's so warm, and he feels so loose. He gets out of the pew with all his limbs and all his muscles looser than normal, and when they step out of the church he keeps a distance between himself and Blaine because he still feels it, the warmth of Blaine's gaze, and he almost doesn't need a coat, even though it's February, even though it's freezing out.

When they stand in the parking lot, only twenty feet from the car, in a loose circle, waiting to hear about the reception, it's nice. They're in the old group, again, Santana, Quinn, Mercedes, Mike, Tina, Puck, Sam, Brittany, Rachel, him and Blaine, with Jake, Marley and Ryder in a huddle off by themselves, laughing to their own jokes. It's like it should be. And they're laughing and talking, and he manages to work in an impression of ski ballet from the 1992 Olympics because he knows that it's freaking hysterical and also because he knows that Blaine will get a kick out of it. And it's true. Blaine's brown eyes are glowing across the circle, his cheeks ruddy, his smile showing his teeth. Kurt can hear him laughing, too. It's nice to hear everyone else, and he honestly does listen when Puck tries to think of all the other bizarre Olympic sports they could make up and attach the word "ballet" to, but he finds that he keeps saying things that Blaine will laugh at again, because it is really the best sound.

* * *

Blaine thinks that if he wasn't so excited, he could die happy. But he won't die, because Kurt Hummel has been sashaying in front of him—_sashaying_—since they got out of the church. Just a little extra flick of the hips when he walks, but Blaine knows that Kurt knows that Blaine's watching him. God, it's so hot. In the parking lot Kurt was glowing, too, and he should be; people should watch him all the time, he should be the focus of attention wherever he goes. He's magnificent. Blaine watches him joke and laugh and do an impression of ski ballet and he knows he's not the only one who's in love with Kurt Hummel. Puck says something stupid. Nothing else is as funny as Ski Ballet. Blaine knows it. Sam knows it too. He tries to do a Sean Connery impression and it goes all right; Blaine chuckles at the ground but looks back at Kurt almost immediately; Kurt says, "Can you imagine if Sean Connery did Ski Ballet?"

Now _that's_ funny.

Tina and Rachel insist they drive over to the hotel with their respective dates, but then they're through the doors, they're in the ballroom, they're at their seats, and Blaine has locked on Kurt again. He felt adrift, in the car, not knowing where Rachel's car was, where Kurt was. He kept trying to keep his eyes on the road, but still trying to see, peering through the windows without making it look like he was peering.

But now here he is, safely locked in the magnetic pull of Kurt again. It's wonderful.

He sits with Tina because he thinks he should, as a gentleman—he did ask her to come with him, after all. Almost immediately he notices that Kurt is zigzagging back and forth, a peculiar movement. He comes close to Blaine's table to talk to someone, Mike or Rachel, and then he'll move away, far away, to the bar, to very back of the room. And then he'll meander close again, to look at an ice sculpture not two feet away from Blaine, or compliment Becky's dress, before he makes a beeline for the dessert table in the very back of the room.

Blaine can smell him. Can smell that cologne.

The first couple times Kurt comes close Blaine wants to reach out and say, "come sit with me," but each time he opens his mouth Kurt turns and flees. When he gets more and more perplexed, it becomes annoying, then amusing, and then he realizes what Kurt's doing. Kurt is drawn to him just like he's drawn to Kurt, but of course Kurt's stubborn. And Kurt was hurt. Kurt doesn't get over being hurt very easily.

Tina's talking, but Blaine is watching Kurt go back and forth, come close and then dart away again. _Does he even know what he's doing? Is this unconscious? It's gotta be._

So Kurt meanders towards him and then away again, and Blaine tracks him all over the freaking ballroom. Marley comes over the table, Ryder comes over the table, Mike comes over the table—it's nice to see Mike, but they have less in common than they did last year. It's difficult. All these people are nice, and it's fun to dance and sing with them, but it's all of a sudden the _Right Side of Christmas. _Now all he's thinking about is being in New York with Kurt. In a few months he won't see these people any more and now that he's aware of it, now that it's coming towards him, every day a little closer, he feels less and less inclined to worry about whether or not this straight boy hooks up with this straight girl when none of them are particularly good for each other.

After the third time Kurt comes up to look at the ice sculpture, just after Tina starts singing "Make You Feel My Love," originally by Adele, Blaine gets up and goes right close to him. Kurt moves a couple steps back, but Blaine says, "We should finalize the moves for our song, don't you think?" before Kurt can get very far. "And make sure the guys know what song we're actually singing. You did tell them, right?"

Kurt draws himself up. "Of course I did."

"Well then," And Blaine leads Kurt out of the Ballroom. He can still sort of hear Tina, but in the hallway the noise of hotel patrons in the restaurant, and the sound of Blaine concentrating on Kurt drown her out completely. They only have a couple minutes, so it's just a "There were a couple things you did in the second run through—yeah, that side step, and that, like that, yeah—don't do it like the last time, that was-well. The second run through was the best, I think," before they hear Tina wrap up her song (she sounded decent, although Blaine really wasn't paying much attention).

He loves being alone with Kurt. They don't have to be doing anything sexual, although since this afternoon, since the car, there's a buzz under his skin of _want_. But it's more than that, too. This one on one conversation, this lack of other people around, this focus on just the zip of their skin and voices. He doesn't have to listen to anyone else; he can just concentrate on Kurt. He can settle in his skin, almost.

And then they're on, and they're dancing, and Blaine has his arm around Kurt, and Kurt is doing that shimmy, and they're sharing a mike, and every once in a while Kurt looks at Blaine under his eyelashes, and does a little tongue flick, and Blaine lets his hands linger, and wraps his arms over Kurt's shoulders, and it's heaven.

After the song, Blaine brings Kurt "just-friends punch," whatever that is, and spies him talking to Tina across the room. They look like they are in it for the long haul. He edges over to them, but when Kurt sees him he wraps his arm around his waist.

"Blaine, what took you so long? Come on, I want to dance." He gulps down his punch, so Blaine does too, shrugging at Tina, who just turns away.

"What's wrong with Tina?" Blaine manages to ask, even though he's concentrating more on Kurt's hand in his.

Kurt snorts. "What _isn't_ wrong with her. Jeez. You are aware that she vapo-raped you, right? Right? Blaine?"

Blaine takes his eyes off Kurt's ass to frown. "She what?"

"She _vapo-raped _you. You were sick, you fell asleep, and she decided it would be a good idea to strip you and rub vicks vapo rub all over you!" He hisses, pulling Blaine to the center of the dance floor. Artie's singing a rap song about thrift stores.

Blaine frowns harder, trying to remember being raped. But then he remembers going to sleep sick, and waking up better, and then Tina was mad afterwards. "Oh. Was that what happened? I thought I just rubbed it on myself."

Kurt begins dancing against him, but not so much that they can't talk, tugging on Blaine's hand and hip until Blaine starts dancing too. "No, Blaine. No. She—She. Ugh. God. She's in love with you. She's your hag."

Blaine has a moment where he's flattered, and then he feels inconvenienced. They could be talking about anything else but Tina. "Really? How do you—How do you know?"

"Trust me; I know what it looks like to be in love with you without you knowing about it." Kurt grumbles.

Blaine's heart aches with wanting Kurt so much. He wants to fold him into his arms and tell him they never have to be apart again. But instead he says, lightly, "You didn't vapo-rape me, did you? That might be sexier. The thought of Tina doing it is a little-"

Even though they're dancing Kurt is almost pounding on a table in frustration. Instead he just grips the shoulder of Blaine's jacket in as much of a fist as he can make without wrinkling the material too badly. "That's the point! You didn't ask for it, it wasn't consensual, it wasn't what you wanted!"

Oh this is much better. He would put Angry-for-Blaine's-Sake-Kurt in a Gladiator Ring against a Giant Dragon—no, make that _many_ Giant Dragons any day and Kurt would come out victorious. Blaine has seen this mostly in relation to his fights with his parents last year, so it's nice to see it directed somewhere a little less emotionally fraught.

Blaine wraps his hand around Kurt's back. "So did you? Sexy Vapo-Rape me?"

"Rape is not sexy, Blaine. It's not a joke."

Blaine huffs out a sigh. "Ok. Fine."

"I would never do something like that. I told you in a relatively mature fashion that I was interested, and then I let you take your time before you grew a pair."

"Oh yeah?" Blaine takes Kurt's hand and spins him, even though this song is a rap. But it positions Kurt so that his back is to Blaine's front. "And was it successful? Did I grow a pair?"

Kurt tips his head back. "Uh. Huh." Blaine slowly rolls his hips into Kurts ass, and Kurt controls the movement, so that he grinds back into Blaine's pelvis when they come to the other side of the circle of hips. "Yeah, Yeah, successful."

"Good. No more talk about Tina," Blaine whispers into Kurt's ear.

"Thank God."

Blaine chuckles, and rolls his hips again."Thought you didn't believe in God."

Kurt flips in Blaine's arms and slides one thigh between Blaine's, grinding just a little, keeping up the movement they started, whispering, right into Blaine's ear, "That's why we made out in the parking lot of a church earlier today."

And Blaine laughs, out loud, straight up into the ceiling.

When he looks back down, Kurt's watching him with a slow smile, the kind he doesn't give out unless he doesn't know he's doing it, the kind he used to give out when they said "I love you," or sometimes when they sang in the car, or after really good sex.

And Blaine knows, no matter how many times Kurt says that they're just friends, it's never been true and it never will be true. He lets Kurt rock their hips together, eschewing pretty much all sense of musicality, and he's pretty sure there are some furious and scandalized gingers in the house tonight.

But he doesn't care because Kurt is coming back to him. Slowly but surely, coming back to him. He just has to hold on.

When Finn and Rachel sing their song—why did they think this was good for a wedding song? Wasn't this supposed to be Finn's best man toast?—Kurt doesn't lead them off the dance floor, like Blaine thinks he might. Instead he just slows them down and tucks his head over Blaine's shoulder. And Blaine nuzzles a little, as much as he thinks he can get away with, holding Kurt as firmly as he can get away with, with his hands splayed along Kurt's back, because if this is what he gets then he wants to remember the feeling of Kurt in his arms, he wants as much of it as possible.

This is what being lonely is like. Being alone. When you have a chance at taking what you want you grab it and you don't look back. He knows it will hurt later, he knows he will second guess himself when Kurt doesn't call, or when Kurt tells him over the phone that they're just friends and he can't read Kurt's contrary body language.

But right now it's worth it. The moments stretch out and out and Kurt hums a little against him, and it's so good. There's nothing else for it; Every pore of him feels good.

* * *

After the slow dance, after Kurt wakes back up again from whatever trance he was under, he realizes he has one of two choices. Either leave the wedding now, or he gets a hotel room and drags Blaine up so he can ravish him. Really, it's the best conclusion. They should get each other out of their systems. They never had closure after the—after the-never mind. They never had closure. They need a good, out and out dirty sex fest. And this is the best place to do it. And Adam _did_ say they were non-exclusive.

He leads Blaine back to his table. Blaine looks calm, looks composed, but the one instance of full on eye contact they have after the song ends is a little more starry eyed than he thinks Blaine intended because he coughs and immediately starts talking to Will's mother. Kurt says he's just going to the bathroom for a sec, he'll be right back, and tries to pretend he doesn't feel Blaine watching him leave.

Really he jogs to the convenience store next door to pick up condoms and lube (both of which they have because they are right next to a hotel and right across from a church). When he gets back he asks the front desk how much a room for the night is, does some quick math in his head, and makes a decision. He figures, in light of their rape conversation earlier, that he should ask Blaine about the whole shacking up in a room first, rather than just assuming. It's easy enough to pay for it on the way up.

It would be faster to do it now, though.

Kurt hesitates, and the woman says that they can reserve the room, get all his information now, and if he decides to use it they'll put it through the system then, without all the hassle of credit card numbers. He thanks her profusely.

When he gets back to the ballroom, he doesn't see Blaine, but Blaine evidently sees him, because he comes up to him fairly quickly, trying to look nonchalant and failing.

"Oh, Hi, Kurt. I thought you might have left, you know. Thought you might be feeling bad because some of those appetizers—probably not so good on your stomach, you know, but you weren't in the bathroom, so I checked the other bathroom, but you weren't there, and the hotel staff hadn't seen you, so I thought you had left. You probably did leave. Your hair—" He looks up and Kurt can see his face fall. "Right. Right." Kurt reaches up to it automatically, the jog over probably disheveled it, and the winter winds.

"Blaine." Kurt grabs his hand. "Yes, I left. I went to the convenience store next door to pick up a couple things." Kurt cocks his head to the side and lowers his voice. "A couple necessary things."

Blaine shifts his feet. "A couple necessary things. Pepto Bismal."

Kurt chuckles and steps closer to him, so that he's whispering just next to Blaine's ear "No, B," he runs his hand along Blaine's waist, inside his coat, and he can feel Blaine shiver. "I don't know if you want to. Maybe it's too much. But we could go upstairs? Finish what we started in the parking lot? If you want."

Blaine freezes, and Kurt has a moment where he thinks _shit, he's going to say no,_ and then Blaine's hands are on his, inside his coat; Blaine's hands are running up his arms and then sliding along his stomach and then Blaine is nosing along his throat and nipping lightly at his jaw. "Please, Kurt, please. Yes. Yes. Please. _Please._"

Kurt was so right to put all his information down ahead of time. When they go by the front desk, Kurt tries to be adult and professional, and Blaine tries to hang back, but the woman at the front desk totally knows, and gives him the room key with pursed lips. Fucking Ohio.

But then he turns back to Blaine and Blaine's smile is so bright, he's so goddamn happy, and Kurt can't help but grin, too; in the elevator they take opposite sides of the car so they don't ravish each other and have to awkwardly stop if another person gets on, but the heat is unbearable, he can feel the thickness in the air between them.

The hallway is empty, and they saunter down it, Kurt feeling loose and sort of like he's going to pounce at any moment, and he lets Blaine stay a little bit ahead of him so that he can just keep watching him, watching him walk, watching the way Blaine keeps turning back to watch _him_.

God, why can't life be like this every day? All the time?

He opens the door, and Blaine hesitates, saying, "I know, you're in New York, your plans don't include me, I know that we're just friends, Kurt, I know, but I just wanted to say—"

And Kurt just wants him to be quiet, because he's fairly sure that Blaine is going to say something like, "we'll always have each other, for better or for worse," and Kurt can't handle that right now, because he doesn't know what to say back to that, so he reaches out for Blaine's tie and tugs him inside. When they're in the room and the door is closed Kurt says, "You have no idea what plans I have in store for you, Mister. No idea."

And Blaine makes a soft whining noise, and Kurt kisses him.

* * *

_A/N: thanks for reading! Pwp tomorrow! _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: this is pretty much porn. I do not own the characters and I do not own a penis, so__ I might be wrong about all of this. _

_Thanks for the love, everyone! Happy trails! _

* * *

They part long enough to strip the bed, and fold their clothes neatly. No sense making a mess.

When they come back together Kurt pushes Blaine onto the bed and then covers him. They make out, arching against one another, grinding, increasing the tempo every once in a while until they're both hard, and then Kurt lifts up on his arms, wanting to _see. _Blaine's flushed, under him, panting. He noses his way down Blaine's body, eases Blaine's underwear down as he goes, letting Blaine's cock spring up. He rubs at Blaine's inner thighs and stomach, but he really wants to taste.

"I'm going to suck you, is that ok?"

"yeah, yeah—Kurt you don't have to ask."

Kurt growls, and then says, low in his throat, "I'm not Tina," before taking Blaine's cock in his mouth and sucking on it until Blaine's laughter turns into short moans, until he starts chanting Kurt's name, and trying very very hard not to run his fingers through Kurt's hair, and instead squeezing Kurt's shoulders. "Kurt, Kurt—ah, this is—um, oh, this is going to be over soon if you, oh—oh! Right like that, yes, god why are you so good at this, you've always been unfairly—yes, yes—" and his voice gets a deeper baritone when he's turned on, too, which makes Kurt want him to come more, so he can hear it get deeper—it's a vicious cycle.

Kurt laves his tongue along the underside of Blaine's cock, takes just the head into his mouth and teases the slit, takes a couple deep pulls, brings his hand up to get a good rhythm going, and Blaine's making "huhh-huh uh"noises in his throat, just like in the car, Kurt remembers them from the car—good, it wasn't just him—and he lets a single finger wander down Blaine's cock, down Blaine's balls, let's it circle and rest against Blaine's hole. Blaine makes a garbled noise that might have been a question but when he applies the merest bit of pressure against it and sucks against his cock at the same time Blaine arches suddenly against him, his eyes widening, coming, finally, and Kurt swallows reflexively as Blaine fills his mouth with cum, he just keeps coming, as if he hadn't come in a while, as if he'd been holding it in, as if he'd been waiting.

Blaine's body flops back against the mattress and Kurt crawls back up to nuzzle against him. He loves watching Blaine come down from an orgasm like this; he has to refocus, and he blinks a lot, and he has the dopiest grin on his face. Kurt's so hard he can't think straight, and he slides his own cock against Blaine's hip a couple times, but he props his head on his hand and waits for Blaine to come back.

It takes Blaine less time then Kurt thought it would for him to recover and reach for him. Kurt's hips are making involuntary jerking motions, and Blaine wraps his hand around Kurt's cock. "My turn, yes, yes. My turn."

Blaine's hand is warm the friction is almost too much against Kurt's over sensitized cock. "Oh, Blaine, I'm so close, seeing you was—"

Blaine releases him and pouts a little. "You got to taste, I want to taste."

Kurt smirks. "Better make it fast, then, I'm like, this close—" But Blaine is somehow already nipping at his navel, sucking at his hipbone, licking at the junction of his thigh and pelvis. "B. Stop being a tease—" so Blaine takes him into his mouth whole, and Kurt's upper body arches almost fully off the bed at the warm wet heat of it.

"Shit, shit shit shit shit—"

Blaine bobs down even lower and increases the suction, but his right hand extends upwards, twining with Kurt's hand, interlacing their fingers, and Kurt can't stop himself and he comes down Blaine's throat, pulsing, trying not to jerk upwards, feeling the movements of Blaine's throat and mouth as he swallows around him.

When he's finished Blaine pulls back, clearing his mouth and throat, licking up the excess, then crawls up and sits on top of him. Kurt can see his cock jutting, hard again, from his trimmed nest of curls.

"Hmm."

"I don't want you to think we're done," Blaine says.

"No," Kurt says, smirking, and stretching his arms above his head, "I can see that."

Blaine lowers his upper body so that he can kiss him, so that they can lazily entwine their tongues together; rub their lips back and forth. After a minute he scoots his hips back so that they line up with Kurt's.

"Too much?" he asks.

Kurt cocks his head to the side as Blaine grinds a little bit against him, then he smiles as he feels a slow curl of arousal shoot through him. "Surprisingly, no."

Blaine's eyebrows shoot up and he gets a small, bizarre half smile before curling his brows together, and says, "When was the last time—never mind, don't answer that. You don't have to answer that."

Kurt's silent, and they rock their hips together, letting their the remnants of spit slide their cocks together, until it dries and Blaine has to go fishing in Kurt's pants for the lube that Kurt bought at the convenience store. He grabs the condoms, too, dropping them on the nightstand, and then slicks them both up so they can rut against each other more easily.

They're not in any rush, this time, and after a minute Kurt sighs and flips them over, twining their hands together, pressing soft kisses into Blaine's neck, then going for his mouth, so that Blaine opens up against him and they're slipping their tongues against one another, just rocking, letting their cocks slip and slide, letting the soft hush of pleasure and the gasps overwhelm them.

When Blaine starts making those noises, those "huh huh" noises, which means he's getting into it, Kurt stops rocking his hips.

"Hey—what—"

"I want to be inside you. I want to fuck you."

Blaine blinks, then slowly smiles, "Mm, Mister Hummel. You really _did_ have plans for me. I thought you got those condoms for no reason at all." He spreads his legs and twists his upper body, looking for a pillow.

Kurt shrugs, sits back on his knees, and then reaches over Blaine to the nightstand for the lube and condoms. "I work slowly, what can I say."

"You didn't work so slowly this morning." Blaine looks over the side of the bed for a pillow. "I seem to recall_ someone_ speeding to the church, kicking Sam out of the car and then practically molesting me in the back seat." He drags it up, lifts his hips, and places the throw pillow underneath, his legs splaying open, his hole on display.

Kurt groans. "God, look at you. You're incredible." He squirts some lube onto his finger.

Blaine's breathe hitches and he says, "I love your fingers, Kurt, those fingers. Jeez. Please. Please."

Kurt flicks a glance up to him. "Are you going to be good?"

"I'm trying, I'm trying, what more do you want?" Blaine's eyes are pleading, and he shifts his legs wider, his hole more open.

"Oh, Blaine," Kurt runs his fingers around the rim, "I want it all," and he feels like he's saying a million things at once, and his throat and chest feel tight, his eyes burn like he might start crying, even though this isn't the time, or place, and he doesn't even know why.

Blaine's breathing is fast and heavy. "You have it. Take it."

He shakes his head. Stop this, Hummel. Stop this right now. "One step at a time, dear. First we have to get you ready." He sinks one finger in and finds that Blaine opens up beautifully beneath him. Fuck. Blaine's been practicing on his own again—unless? Unless there's someone else? No, Blaine would have said something. That's what friends do, right? They tell each other things. He'll ask. When they're done, he'll ask if there's someone else. Friends would ask.

"Yes. Yes. More, Kurt, More. I can take it."

"I can see that. Have you been practicing?" He might as well just ask now, actually. Now is a good time to ask. "Or is there someone who's been helping you?"

"Oh god, Kurt, no, no one—I have that toy we bought together, remember, I use it, I think about you sometimes—"

He inserts another finger, and starts lightly thrusting, not going for his prostate yet. He'll wait on that one; Blaine is so sensitive. "Good. I'm glad you've been using it. Keeping you limber. It's good—not too wide. Keeps you tight enough."

"Another, please, Kurt, I'm ready, I'm really—really ready—"

Kurt inserts another and Blaine huffs out his exhale, so Kurt gives him a moment to adjust. When he feels Blaine start to bear down, when he starts to try to rock back, Kurt thrusts in and out with his fingers. Blaine lets out a moan, a soft moan, and Kurt withdraws.

"Ok, ok, hold on." Kurt rolls the condom on, lubes himself up, and then presses forward, so that his cock breaches the first two rings of muscles, so that his head is inside. "Yeah?" he asks.

Blaine's forehead is creased down the middle, and he says, "Kurt," like the end of a sob, before wrapping his legs high around Kurt's back. "Please, please please please," he chants, like a mantra, and his hands are clutching to Kurt's shoulders like a lifeline, and when he opens his eyes Kurt inhales sharply because his eyes are looking at him like he's the fucking answer, like he's everything, like he's the only person in the world.

He eases in so that he's fully seated, and eases out, because it's been a while and he doesn't want to hurt him. The moments drag on, and he can smell Blaine's skin, the remnants of Blaine's cologne, and Blaine's raspberry hair gel, and does Blaine know that after their break up he couldn't stand to eat raspberries—that once he actually threw up just looking at raspberries—does he know? He presses his nose to the junction of Blaine's neck and shoulder, trying to memorize all the different scents, trying to keep them all. He'd read somewhere that memory had the strongest link to smell. Here goes nothing—he inhales through his nose. If he ever smells anything remotely similar to this again, he wants to remember right here, right now.

After a minute of slowly moving in and out Blaine becomes impatient, and starts jerking his hips up, arching this way and that, trying to get Kurt to come at him from the right angle. Kurt laughs, bends his knees, thrusts just so.

Blaine cries out, and Kurt speeds up his thrusts. "Baby, you're so good. You're so good at taking it." He's thrusting more intently now, and he can hear his balls slapping against Blaine's skin, and Blaine's thrusting back against him, too, just little rocks of his hips but it makes it better, it makes it _more_.

Kurt lifts his torso up, uncurling Blaine's legs and then getting them over his shoulders, holding his thighs and hips so he can get more leverage, and starts slamming into him. Blaine is so tight and so hot around him, saying, "right there, yeah, baby, right like that, so good—god," and Blaine reaches his arms up to brace against the headboard, and that reminds Kurt of this morning when he rolled on Kurt's own deodorant—

Blaine tilts his head up to look at him, his eyes boring into Kurt's, groaning and making sharp crying, needy noises every time Kurt slams into his prostate, and Kurt gives up, a little, just gives up, and says, "So beautiful, so wonderful, need you so much, all the time, miss you so much, why aren't you there with me, don't want to be alone any more, B, need you, need you, need you—" he's thrusting mindlessly, not even sure what he's saying, he's just saying things, and it devolves even further, into just "Yes" and "more" and "so good" and "need you," and Blaine's hand comes off the headboard to cup his face, and his other hand reaches underneath him to push his upper body up so he can press his face against Kurt's, his breath hot and sweaty against Kurt's mouth, so he can kiss Kurt, and then Blaine's saying, "I'm here, always here, I need you too, so much, always, all the time, want to be with you so much—yes, like this, love, like this—" And he squeezes his eyes closed because even here, now, he doesn't know what this means or what to feel or how to think.

He can feel Blaine tightening around him, and he can feel his own balls tingling, the scoop of rushing in his own lower stomach, so he takes one hand off of his thigh and brings it down to Blaine's cock and jerks once, twice—and then his eyes fly open just in time to see Blaine falling back, arching, his neck a beautiful, stretching, curved line against the hotel pillow, his mouth open, gasping, his eyelids fluttering, as cum splatters against his stomach, his heaving, bucking stomach, and Kurt can't stand it anymore, he thrusts once more and comes, hot and pulsing, inside of Blaine, clenching down, shouting, wishing he weren't wearing a condom, wishing he could feel just Blaine around him.

And then it's over and he's laying over Blaine, breathing harsh pants next to his ear. Blaine is running his hands over Kurt's shoulder blades, letting their breaths settle. When Kurt draws back and looks down at Blaine he doesn't see starry eyes, he doesn't see a dopey grin, like he expects. Blaine looks like he's in pain, but when he jerks back, frowning, about to ask, Blaine's features settle into a smile, and he pets at Kurt's face, his shoulders, and reaches up for a kiss.

"I love it when you start slow and then go wild like that. God, your face, Kurt. Your face." Blaine says, through kisses.

"Mmm," Kurt says, "mm." They can't seem to stop kissing. He lets himself slip out of Blaine, and Blaine inhales sharply when he does. He pulls back only a fraction of an inch, enough to say, "did I hurt you?" Kurt looks down their bodies and then reaches over the night stand. Blaine makes a whine of protest but humms when Kurt quickly cleans the cum off his belly, slips the condom off, ties it, and wraps it in a tissue.

Blaine pulls Kurt back down, bumps their noses and runs his thigh along Kurt's hip. "No. I might be sore tomorrow, but—no. No." He claims Kurt's mouth again. "I could probably go again, if you're up for it," he says, after a minute.

Kurt chuckles. "You're insatiable."

"I mean, you'll have to give me a little bit, but—"

Kurt runs his hand down Blaine's side, "Mmm, do we have time?" He glances over at the clock, but when he's trying to make sense of the numbers—they have forty five minutes? Is that right?—he finds that Blaine is rolling them, rolling them until Kurt's on his back and Blaine is nestling himself with his head right under Kurt's chin and his right leg hitched over Kurt's pelvis.

He yawns and rolls a nipple between his fingers. "Oh god, is Burt still doing that curfew thing?"

"Whenever I'm under his roof, apparently."

"No wonder you like New York," Blaine says.

Kurt turns his face to the door. "Yeah." When he turns back to Blaine he knows he's going to be asked about it later, because Blaine tends to be annoyingly perceptive. "But I only have forty five minutes, and I don't want to have a fight with my Dad about him being worried about me, and me being worried about him."

They lay there for another couple minutes, Kurt feeling Blaine's breath against him, stroking his skin with the tips of his fingers. Blaine rubs his hand and arm over Kurt's stomach, his face pressed against his chest, humming errantly. It's warm and satisfying and still a little electric.

But he can't stay here, he knows he can't. So he kisses Blaine's forehead, untangles them, and heads to the bathroom to turn on the water. He knows Blaine's watching him, so he stretches before he goes in, lengthens his spine, lengthens his legs, flexes his muscles subtly.

He hears a groan from the bed, and then Blaine says, "Are you trying to kill me?"

Kurt laughs and starts the water in the shower, but after it gets warm and Blaine still isn't in the bathroom he shouts, "Are you coming?"

Blaine shouts, "I might, I'm an independent woah-man and don't need no one! If you liked it than you should-a put-a ring on it!"

He pokes his head out of the bathroom, eyeing Blaine's ass and legs, where he can see them beyond the pillows and mound of sheets. "God, Blaine, I mean, are you showering with me?"

"Oh!" He sees Blaine's head pop up from between the pillows. "Oh. Mister Naked-Hotness, I think that is a fantastic idea."

Kurt lifts an eyebrow as naked Blaine comes towards him, all muscles and soft skin and downy hair and touchable—Jesus, it's only been a couple minutes and he wants him again. He blinks and tries to focus on something else. "Woah-man?"

Blaine lifts a shoulder and slides an arm around Kurt's waist so that they're pressed together, hip to hip, and Kurt feels a raw ache at just that soft slide, that press of skin together. "I'm trying it out. No?"

"I don't think it'll stick."

Blaine doesn't seem to mind. He takes Kurt's face in his hands and kisses him, lazily letting their tongues twine together.

Kurt pulls back, panting a little. "B, the shower. The shower."

"Right. Right."

Kurt manages to get him in the shower, but then there's soap, all over them, making them slippery against each other, and Kurt gives up, letting them rut against each other, finally, thanking evolution for giving teenage boys short refractory periods.

Blaine comes first, and he jerks Kurt off with the last of the soap, and kisses him through it, holding him close, letting his cum erupt in his fist and against their stomachs, and Kurt doesn't want to think about how he's clutching at Blaine, clutching at his shoulders and pressing their foreheads together.

Blaine watches him get dressed, like he's done so many times before. He sort of seems to soak it up, and Kurt would feel awkward about it, except that he can't muster the awkwardness at all. Instead he puts on his socks so that they're folded correctly, neatly buttons his cufflinks, tucks his shirt in so it won't pull in that distracting way that he hates and looks puffy in the back.

He's buttoning his shirt when Blaine says, sounding almost choked with how happy he is, "Tell me now that we're not back together."

Kurt can't tell him. He won't put Blaine through another long distance relationship which stifled and hurt him so badly before. So he says, trying to shake it off, "I mean, it was fun, but—" because that's what they both need, right? They both just wanted fun from this. That was the point, and that was what was achieved, and that's what will keep them going until the end of this year, when they can re-evaluate their options.

But Blaine is all shining eyes. "Don't. I'm not going to let you minimize this, Kurt. It's no accident that we were together on Christmas," He sort of hops off the bed and grabs Kurt's jacket, holding it so that Kurt can slip his arms into it, "And again on Valentine's day." It feels very domestic, and Kurt almost misses what Blaine's saying because he's so focused on the feeling of his arms helping the jacket slide up to his shoulders. "And we're going to be together for many many more, no matter how much you pretend that this doesn't mean anything." Blaine brushes some lint off his shoulders, keeps his hands there, and just looks at him in the mirror. Looks at them.

He's so optimistic.

Kurt swings around, leaning forward, almost to kiss him, but not letting himself, and whispers, "I'll see you downstairs," because if he doesn't get out of this room he'll shuck off all his clothes again and they'll never leave.

But then he's in the lobby, and the lobby is colder than the room, and he's alone, and he hates it.

* * *

Kurt says, "I'll see you downstairs," but it sounds a whole hell of a lot like, "if I don't leave right now I'll fuck you again, and then where will we be with curfew?"

So he says, "Ok," feeling maybe this could be ok, maybe he could turn this around, maybe he could make this work, and turns, just as he hears the door click. He knows nothing is solved, he knows Kurt's still holding out on him, but he didn't pitch a fit, he didn't say, "Blaine, I don't like you, get over it." He just looked at him like he wanted to ravish him (again).

In fact, the whole day has been pretty fantastic. Blaine looks around the room, the room where Kurt sucked him down almost immediately upon entering, the room Kurt made love to him in, and Blaine swings around, stretching his arms, and does a backward fall into that very bed.

And yes, it smells like sex. Like sex and sweat and cum and—and Kurt. It smells like Kurt's cologne, and Blaine's cologne, and he rolls around in the sheets, rubbing them against his body until he realizes how gross that is. It was more than he asked for. Anything could happen—God, Anything did happen. The Gods of Gay Men have smiled down on Blaine Devon Anderson. Thank you, whoever you are, because this is something he thought would take a whole hell of a lot longer to get to.

Kurt was almost _angry_ with him, for not being in New York. Kurt has a lot of reasons to be angry with him, but he seemed like he was angry at Blaine for staying behind, for making him go on ahead alone. As if he should have encouraged him to wait around a year? Work at the Lima Bean where he hated it? No option, clearly.

Blaine curls his hand in the sheets, smelling them. They are so tied together. Did Kurt think he could just snip the strings during Grease weekend and then wind out a new one, today, here, without consequences? Did he think they could ever be anything but tangled? Either they comb through or they knife it.

Every moment touching Kurt was pleasure and pain at once. He felt the pleasure, mostly on the surface, but there were times when he could feel the pain waiting for him. _Why aren't you there with me. Don't want to be alone anymore. Need you. It was fun, but._

Two crocodile tears eek out the corners of his eyes and fall into the sheets before he gets up.

He pulls on his shirt and leaves his tie loose, does a couple stretches to see how sore his ass is (not too bad, not like after that one time where they'd tried it in the car, god, afterwards was terrible), throws out as many cum filled tissues he can find (common courtesy for the staff), pockets the extra lube and condoms, and then jogs down the hall, to the elevator.

When Kurt sees him step out of the elevator, he goes from drawn and tired looking to sexy and tall in about two seconds. Blaine blinks and quirks his head.

"You ok?" he asks.

"Sure. Yeah. You?"

"Yeah, you looked—you looked strange there, for a minute." He tries not to stand too close to him but he can still smell him; god he'd be able to smell Kurt anywhere.

Kurt blinks rapidly. "Fine. Just. It's colder out here than in the room. That's all." He shivers, as if he thinks Blaine may not believe him.

Blaine smiles, giddiness coming back to him in a rush. "It's colder everywhere than in the room, Kurt."

"Try not to make everything into a metaphor about our rela-friendship?" he arches an eyebrow, but Blaine can see his lip twitching. He puts his hands up.

"Stating facts! Stating facts! That room was like, a million degrees when we got done with it!"

"Uh huh."

"Really!"

"Right. Did you throw out all the—?"

"Of course."

"And you've got the extra—"

"Of course."

Kurt starts walking towards the exit, Blaine on his heels, trying to look casual, but pretty sure he's failing miserably. He's pretty sure this is the best Valentine 's Day ever, except for last valentine's day, when he saw Kurt for the first time after a three week illness and then they blew each other in the bathroom of Breadsticks while Brittany kept watch outside. That one might be better because they were officially together, then, and he was able to say, "I love you," then.

They sing in the car on the way home, harmonizing, which is almost as good as sex because they've got their hands clasped over the car's mid-consol, and they're both focusing on the other really hard. If Blaine changes parts, Kurt will key mid note to accommodate; If Kurt changes his register from high to low then Blaine tempers his own arrangement to suit. They're just on the top forty station but they're making the songs complex, doing runs and sweeps and rounds. The most miraculous thing, Blaine thinks, is that if he thinks, "oh, we could do the song this way," all he has to do is start singing it and Kurt will catch on. Once or twice he uses a hand motion, but Kurt mostly seems to just _know_, or maybe they just both have the same taste. Or there are a couple times when Kurt starts the song and Blaine's providing backup, but Blaine's never worried that he's doing it wrong, or that he's not adequate enough. He listens to Kurt and fills in where he hears that he needs to fill in.

When he drops Kurt off at his house they spend the last three minutes of time left making out in the front seat because they've been inching closer and closer to the mid console through the entire trip, and once the car is parked Blaine reaches over and tugs because that was some incredible singing, that was some incredible dueting, that was some incredible _mind reading_, at the very least. In fact, it's a little bit difficult to make out because he's smiling so much.

"Hey," he says, panting a little "Come to the movies tomorrow, with me. They're playing All About Eve and Showgirls down at the Revival Showhouse. Double feature. After school. Get coffee after." And Kurt's eyes flick back and forth between his eyes and then he says yes. He says yes, he says yes he says yes. Kurt stumbles out of the car, looking a little woozy, but straightening up and then sauntering inside, a grin like some sort of playboy devil on his face, and Blaine thinks he is so hot.

The drive to Westerville takes like, five seconds, and then he's in bed, and then he stuffs his face into a pillow and squeals like a small, exuberant child; he's not ashamed of that at all—not one iota. Kurt Hummel is his, even if he doesn't know it. Oh yes oh yes oh yes.

* * *

_A/N: tomorrow Kurt gets a dressing down by Burt. Stay Tuned! _


	4. Chapter 4

_A:N Do not own! I only Watch, with a mug of hot cocoa, and a lot of warm fuzzy blanket. _

_Hope everyone is staying inside and safe with the snowstorm today! Here's the last chapter of this reaction fic! It's twice as long because I couldn't find a good place to cut it, and I didn't want to give you a short chapter. _

_thanks for sticking with me! Much love to all my reviewers, and followers! _

* * *

Kurt would say he floats through the door, but that would mean he couldn't feel his feet, and he very much can feel his feet. He can feel every part of his body, and they all feel really great.

On the way in he waves to his father and Sam in the living room, watching a late night football game, and Sam whistles and says, "There's the man of the hour! Didn't know if you'd be home tonight! Those moves on Blaine tonight—bow chicka wow wow! So hot! Nice rolling hip action on the dance floor!" Sam demonstrates, with grunts. "You totally got laid, didn't you? I was going to tell you, next time, I have condoms on me at all times. You don't need to go to the convenience store down the street—I got'ya covered." Then he gets up and comes real close to Kurt so that Burt can't hear, "But look, Blaine was really broken up about that thing in the fall, so if you hurt him, or if you know, this thing of yours gets kinky, I'm going to have to side with him. Even though I'm living in your house. It'll get weird, I know, but he's my bro. Just warning you." Then he steps back and says, loudly, "Oh, and jeez, I have something for sore lips. Kissing's a bitch. I'll go get it. Hold on." And then he's out of the room, and Kurt is staring at his father, who's staring back.

"We'll talk in the morning," Burt says.

"I'm an adult."

Burt puts his hands up. "Sure are. But even adults get advice from their Dads," just as Sam comes back, half jogging, with a tube of something that Kurt will absolutely never use.

"Thanks, Sam," he says, and almost but not quite slams the door of his room.

But then he's in his room and today he and Blaine were here, dancing, laughing, and he inhales and falls into bed and he's twisted and confused and good and everything's right but also not right, too.

* * *

At breakfast the next morning Burt finds him. He says, "Hey, help me in the shop this morning, Kiddo."

He pauses, for just a second, and then says, "Sure. Sure."

He puts on his overalls and gets into the truck with his Dad, who doesn't say a single word about Blaine, or the wedding last night, or anything, on the entire drive over.

When they get in Burt says, "You still remember how to change oil?" and Kurt lazily hums, "of course," so Kurt does that while Burt works on something else in the engine.

The silence isn't terribly companionable.

When Kurt is done he gets out from under the car. "You know, you could just ask. 'How's Blaine,' you could say. And I would say, 'he's probably happy as a clam, today, actually, thanks for asking.'"

"Ok," Burt says with a straight face, "How's Blaine?"

Kurt blanks his face. "Funny."

Burt's eyebrows lift. "No, really. I've learned that Sam is less than reliable. So if you say that Blaine is happy, than I'll take your word for it because you're my son, and I trust you." He gives Kurt a gasket to switch out as well, and Kurt slides back under.

But Kurt slides back out again after less than a minute. "That's bull dad. That's bull. You brought me out here to talk, so fine. Let's talk."

Burt braces his hands against the car. "Ok. Let's talk. What happened last night?"

Kurt makes an open gesture with his hands, opens his mouth trying to figure out where to begin. They had sex last night. Hot, glorious, wonderful—he can't tell his father about this. He half smiles and feels his face heat up. "You _know_ what happened last night. We. Well. Well I don't want to talk about what happened last night."

Burt shakes his head. "I don't really want to talk about what happened last night, either."

"Good."

Kurt slides under the car again.

"Have you talked to Blaine about what happened last night?" Burt asks, through the engine.

"It just happened."

Burt wrenches with a pipe. "I'm not so old that I don't—there's pillow talk and car talk—there's talk. You can talk."

Kurt's quiet, delicately maneuvering the gasket into place. "I guess we haven't. I mean. He wants more than I can give."

Burt is quiet, and Kurt knows that that's not good. "I know. I know."

"No, Kurt, I feel you. I know. You're young, in New York, you don't want to be tied down by an old flame back home. I understand."

"God Dad, you make me sound—"

"Like what?"

"You make me sound like a straight guy."

Burt laughs, and reaches into his tool box for a pair of pliers so that he can unscrew a screw. "Well, if the shoe fits—"

Kurt groans.

"Let me guess, you just came back, hoping for a little fun on your break?" when Kurt doesn't say anything he laughs again. "God. Priceless."

"It wasn't just—It wasn't just for fun. I mean, it was. It was Blaine. He had fun too. It wasn't just me."

"I'm sure he did." He can see Burt shaking his head through the twist of tubing. "You and Blaine. You and that kid got something. Do you know he takes me to doctor's appointments? And he's been coming to Friday night dinners?"

Kurt lets out a soft whine, and then says "I'm not _trying _to hurt him-everyone does it this way in New York. That's how it is. And I'm trying to make sure that I know that when I do make a choice that it's the right choice. That I've explored my options—I want to make sure. That's the way people do things."

"Fine. Their decision. Maybe your decision. But when you're dealing with Blaine there are different rules. Maybe with anyone else it could mean less, but that guy—that guy came and told me to talk to you about sex even before you were dating."

"He what?" Kurt has stopped any pretense of putting the gasket in.

"He's been trying to be part of your family, this family, since before he knew what it was. And so I talked to you about it, because he was right. He thinks the sun shines out of your ass, Kurt."

Kurt reaches both hands up to the bumper, slides himself out from under the car, and looks his father directly in the eye, "Yeah, you think I don't see that? You think I don't see—" he reaches for a rag and blows his nose into it, and then doesn't look at his father when he says, "He needs so much, and I'm in New York. I'm swept up so often, and I don't know when he's going to need me and I'm not going to be there. In the fall—I just, I couldn't be there and by the time—I mean I didn't even realize he was so upset. I knew he was upset but I didn't realize he was so upset. It's so easy to hide things over Skype, on the phone, or to just not see them. I can't be what he needs in a long distance thing like this."

Burt leans against a car, crossing his arms over his chest. "So what, you're just going to be with him when you're here, but not with him when you're in New York?"

"No, I—I don't know. We weren't supposed to be anything until summer, or next fall. When we're both in the same place. But he doesn't want to not be anything. And then yesterday he came over to practice our duet for the wedding and—and I. I just." He finally turns to his father, and finds that Burt doesn't look mad, or angry, just probing. Maybe a little sad. "I'm so lonely, in New York. It's good, there are good things, and there are times when I'm happy, and it's getting better, I think, but I'm also—I'm so tired, and so sad, sometimes. And Blaine is just." Kurt looks down at his hands, already smudged with oil. "When he's there I just feel—" but he doesn't know how to finish that sentence because there is so much to say that he doesn't even know where to start.

"Blaine is just Blaine," Burt says.

"Yeah."

Burt wipes his hands on a towel. "Look. Kid. No one can promise that they'll do everything right, especially in a situation like yours, where everyone's at a disadvantage. You know that you're prone to getting swept away, and Blaine is prone to needing too much and hiding it. Ok. But that's life. That's the way things shake out. You can't skip around it. You have to work through it. You have to do right by them. Otherwise there will be a day when you come home and there won't be any one there and you'll realize that family isn't blood relatives at all."

Kurt clenches his fist and turns to look at the car. He lets his Dad's words sit for a minute, and then he rubs his forehead and says, "Last night was a mistake."

Burt turns back and keeps working on the rusty screw. "I don't think you believe that. And I don't think Blaine thinks so either."

Kurt rolls his eyes. "Blaine thinks this means we should be together."

"Well? Why don't you listen to him?"

Kurt frowns, thinking of Adam, of the distance, of what Blaine needs, how much Kurt can screw up in just the span of a few short months. "I just don't think—now's not a good time. Maybe if we're both in New York. But now's not a good time."

Burt shrugs. "Well, then get back under that car. We've got four more to do this morning. You're not off the hook yet." And Kurt blows his nose and gets back under the car, because there are four more to do, and that's somehow comforting.

* * *

In school that day Blaine knows Kurt's in the building even though they didn't plan it. He straightens up in history, turns towards the door and says, "Oh, Kurt's here." He can't see Kurt, but he knows he's coming closer.

Tina's like, "That's ridiculous, it's still school, he'll meet us afterwards—"

But then Kurt appears in the doorway, in a red sweater that hides all the hickeys from last night and also makes Blaine want to snuggle up to him with a movie and simultaneously strip him down to his bare skin and cover him in more hickeys, and then Sam says, "Holy shit, man, you really ARE Nightbird!"

Blaine just shrugs and smiles.

The bell rings and Kurt walks them to Glee, where they're performing in the auditorium for last period. Tina's told him about the vapo-rub incident, and he's feeling totally ok about it, probably because he came his brains out last night and everything feels really great. The cafeteria food today? His favorite. Reviewing the life cycle of leeches in enviro-science? Fantastic, fascinating, freaking-awesome. Tina telling him in person that she vapo-raped him in a fit of hag-lust? Not a problem at ALL.

Tina noticed. She said, "Kurt was really mad at me. I thought you'd be more upset."

What was he supposed to say? He couldn't tell her about the coming-his-brains-out with the love of his life part of the equation, so he said something gentlemanly about knowing she only meant to help him, and wanting to put it in the past. Then he could get back to smiling.

And now they're walking side by side, Kurt holding himself several inches away so that their hands absolutely will not touch.

Tina apologizes for attacking Kurt at the wedding—he looks over at Kurt, who gives him an _I'll tell you later, it's over_ look, and then Tina says, "I saw the old, legendary chemistry. I saw two soulmates rediscovering each other—" she keeps talking but Blaine feels a swell of roses and hearts welling up inside him, he knows he's a sap, he knows it, ok, he knows it—he chances a look over at Kurt and Kurt has a tight, _Fine, maybe, I just don't want to talk about it_ look on his face, and then Tina demands his attention when he whirls around again. "Why can't I have that?" she says, as if she doesn't have Mike Chang's name tattooed on her ass. Mike was giving her looks last night, but did she notice? No. She did not.

"You will," he says, "Just not with me." He feels bad for her, he really does, because not everyone can be fucked silly by this man in the giant crochet stoplight sweater to his right.

She apologizes again, but Blaine feels that he should say something for everyone in the hallway to listen and understand, "It's ok Tina. The truth is, we've all experienced unrequited love before." Once, I attacked a man at the Gap while Kurt pined for me. Now, both Kurt and I are pining for each other at the same time and only last night did we do anything about it. It's the suck, Tina, It's the suck. "And we've all done things we wish we didn't, and we all just want to get back to being friends."

Kurt bursts in at that moment, gesturing with that silly, holey sweater of his that makes his skin look so delicate and lickable and pale—anyway, Kurt gestures between himself and Blaine, "and that's just what we are, I mean, we're just friends," and Blaine bites his cheek for giving him the opening.

Blaine lets his head drop, his lips curl up into a half smile. A half dozen images in his head—his body mirroring Kurt as they sing "I just can't get enough;" Kurt above him in the car in the church parking lot, saying, "I love it when you talk fratty," which he couldn't have said if they hadn't admitted their mutual love of Jersey Shore last year; Kurt with his eyes closed, swaying with him during Rachel and Finn's number last night; Kurt's eyes intense, almost angry, as he thrust into him, asking about why he wasn't in New York yet, saying he didn't want to be alone anymore; and today, just now, as Kurt knew what class he would be in, even though the administrative ladies aren't supposed to give out that information to non-students, and yet there was Kurt with his head in the doorway, looking right at him. Just friends. Sure.

Kurt plows onward and invites Tina to come with them to the movies, and it probably would make her feel better to be among friends. He feels so great about him and Kurt that it doesn't even bother him that the date he proposed for them is being interrupted by his vapo-rapist. He can wait to tell Kurt the things he wants to tell him. Things like, "I just want to start my real life," and "If most things come easy for me, and if I'm happy doing a great variety of performance related things, and don't happen to be choosey, then really _you're_ the deciding factor," and "sometimes I sit by myself and I can't stand it." There will be time. He can see time stretching in front of them, now. Finally.

Kurt comes to Glee Club's big group performance and sits in the back left of the auditorium. Blaine makes faces at him pretty much the entire time, and whirls Tina around when they don't have set choreography, and has a fantastic time. He always loves performing, even when he doesn't have an audience—something about just singing, just dancing, is great—but knowing Kurt is watching him makes him feel like yes, anything could happen.

Afterwards Kurt says, "You guys were great," but he's looking at Blaine. Then he looks away and says to Marley, "Excellent singing. Really." When they split up and the group goes its separate ways, Kurt says, "Was Mr. Shue looking at his phone the whole time?" They amble backstage, through the folds of black curtains.

And Blaine grimaces, and Kurt says, "Now that I'm graduated, do you think I could call him 'Will' and get away with it? Like, hey, _Will_, how's it hanging?"

Blaine laughs and picks it up. It feels weird and blasphemous to call their teacher by his first name, even more so than making out in a church parking lot. "Yo, _Will, _you wanna play B-ball on the weekends?"

Kurt squints at him, jutting his chin forward a little and stopping in the area of backstage beyond the black curtains, where there's a blank part of back stage, where they normally load sets or costumes or props, but is now empty. "What the hell was that?"

"No?" Blaine turns around from a pace in front of Kurt. "What?"

"B-ball on the weekends?" Kurt shifts onto one hip, trying hard not to laugh.

Blaine grins, bending his knees a little into a squat. "I see how these guys do it," Blaine nimbly leaps away from him, miming dribbling a basketball, pretending to evade a couple guys, and shouts, "I could play B-ball on the weekends, Kurt! I could!" He evades a few more, and then leaps again, jumping up to slam dunk an imaginary hoop.

When he looks back he sees Kurt folded at the waist, his hands on his knees, laughing. He comes back to him and Kurt takes his hand and kisses it, almost without noticing what he's done. "You could play B-ball on the weekends," he says, "With _Will_. The two of you would be the whitest B-ball players in history but you could do it." Kurt smiles at him, smiles the same kind of smile that he did in the car last night as they were singing on the way home. So Blaine slides his arm around his waist, spinning him around and hums the first song he can think of, which is actually "Anything Could Happen." Kurt puts a couple jaunty pieces of footwork into their two step, and they don't stop until Tina texts them, asking where they are.

Kurt grumbles and rolls his eyes, and Blaine mimes a basketball until he giggles again, and they collect their bags and coats and then walk out into the February sunshine smiling at each other, trying to push those smiles down and failing.

Tina's waiting for them in the parking lot. She's never seen Showgirls, so while Kurt's talking with Finn about something to do with their mutual parents, and while Blaine is watching Kurt talk to Finn about something, Blaine tells her the basic plot—new performer in town, ends up being a callgirl tries to get promoted, deals with awful men, drugs, etc.

Tina's eyes get wide, as he knew they would. "Drugs?" she says.

"Oh, yeah. Cocaine, I think? Drinking, too. It's rated NC-17." He wrinkles his brow. "How's your cousin, by the way?"

"Lindy's fine. Just fine." Her voice is high and tight and she runs a hand over the bottom of a curl. She really does have lovely hair.

Kurt's walking back to them, and Blaine resists the impulse to hold out his arm. "Ready to go?"

Tina is excited to see their secret sneaky way into the theatre. They always pay for tickets, but then they sneak around, find the stage door, and climb to the balcony, which is technically closed to the public. It has plush red seating and it's still structurally sound, as far as they can tell. It's just that the theatre doesn't want anyone throwing popcorn down on the people below, so the main lobby doesn't have upper floor access.

But the back alley way does.

Tina says, "I feel like a ninja! Or like a real fifties girl! Like before the movie we're going to see an update on the war!"

Kurt and Blaine trade amused glances behind her. Mostly they used to come here to make out.

She sits in between them, and sucks on her soda loudly whenever Bette Davis says something interesting. Blaine can _hear_ Kurt grinding his teeth. There is a reason he and Rachel are friends, he thinks; Rachel would never have stood for any behavior that interrupted something she was interested in, and she would find an excuse, a reason to make that behavior _go away. _

After the movie, during the intermission, Tina begs off like she thought she would. She calls her Mom for a ride, which apparently is no problem, and Blaine waits outside with her until Mrs. Cohen-Chang comes to pick her up. They don't say much, but Tina hugs him goodbye.

When he gets back into the top row of the theatre, Kurt is watching the screen with a disgusted look on his face because there is both drugs and female nudity going on _at the same time. _Blaine laughs, softly, and then strides down the aisle. Kurt looks up.

"Took you long enough."

Blaine makes a humming noise and then instead of going back to his own seat, eases himself down onto Kurt's lap, so that they're face to face.

Kurt says, "Blaine, what are you doing?"

Blaine laughs. "We're not watching this movie." And then he kisses him, and Kurt kisses back.

* * *

Kurt didn't know how it happened. He thought Tina was going to stay with them for both movies, which would have been safer, and kept their attention focused on something other than their hormones—that's what this is, their hormones—but she left after the first one, saying something about her mother, and Asian Friday's, and then the movie in question was gross—which he half expected, but still—and then Blaine strode in looking so definitive, so decided, so confident, and now.

Now they're overwhelming each other, consuming each other.

Kurt pulls back.

"Blaine! We're friends! We should be—we shouldn't be!" He pushes on Blaine's chest a little.

Blaine's face is half glowing in the light of the movie, and he flutters his hands uselessly at his sides. "That's—Kurt. Don't you think it's a little hypocritical that you can make out with me whenever you want to, but I can't just make out with you whenever _I_ want to? If we're going to be friends with benefits, then it should be a two way street, don't you think?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning, early. I don't think this is a productive discussion."

Blaine hisses, "I think this is very productive. I want to make out with you whenever I want, since you seem to be able to make out with me whenever you want."

Kurt crosses his arms over his chest. "And when, exactly, are you going to make out with me?"

Blaine's lips twitch. "Right now, actually."

"I mean—"but Blaine has already nipped at his lower lip again, sucked it into his mouth, and Kurt's letting out a moan. He thinks, Blaine has a point. But doesn't he understand how much harder it will be-but then Blaine shifts and grinds down a little, and Kurt thinks it doesn't matter, because everything about this feels good, and he lets go.

When the credits roll they've gotten into a nice rhythm of lazy kisses and half hearted pelvic thrusts, and Kurt is mostly just enjoying having Blaine on top of him, feeling the heat of him radiating through his shirt. Blaine seems to concur, because when they have to separate, when the lights come up, he pushes away, standing up, and says, "cold," shivering a little, and Kurt frowns, remembering his own half comment from last night, about how the lobby was colder than the room.

They get down the stairs and open the door to the alley, heading towards the car, the winter wind hits him like a singsong chant. _You could have him all the time, you could have him all the time, you could have him all the time. _

But he can't. It's not true, so it's not even worthwhile to dwell on it.

* * *

Blaine still feels like his lips are red and chapped when they burst into the alleyway that the door the upper level of the theatre leads too. They walk to their car, parked in the CVS lot next door, but a group of men, joking and laughing, pass right by the mouth of the alleyway as they're walking through, one of whom looks in, sees them and stares, nudging his friends. Blaine remembers that this is not a good place for them to dwadle. Kurt seems to think about that, too, and they pick up the pace.

Blaine releases something of a breath when they get to the big glowing orange lights of the store, but it's not until they get into the car and lock the doors that he releases his fists. Kurt turns on the ignition and Blaine says, "I guess you just have to worry about people stealing your stuff—not really anything worse," he says.

"In New York," Kurt says, and he pulls out of the parking spot, his jaw clenching, a little. "That's one good thing."

Kurt turns on the radio, but Blaine turns it back down again.

"So, tell me about it," he says.

Kurt wiggles in his seat. "What do you want to know? You were there at Christmas."

"No, I mean, your classes. Your friends." He's pretty sure this is the right question to ask, because Kurt's evading it already.

Kurt stiffens his jaw and pulls out of the parking lot. "You know all about them. We text all the time."

"I know. But that's over skype. It's different in person. Is New York everything you thought it was going to be? Is it different? If I go there next year, what should I know? What should I look out for?"

Blaine crosses his legs and looks out the window at the streets, the small shops, the slushy snow.

Kurt turns his head at a stoplight before the main road to consider Blaine. He worries his lip a little. His eyes are dark, which means he's unhappy, he's considering. "New York," he pauses, and then says again, "New York makes you feel smaller than you thought. Like. On the one hand, that's good. And on the one hand, you know that's going to happen, because all the movies, all the tv shows say it will. But then it does happen and it feels weird."

He pulls out on the green light and Blaine lays his hand on the middle console, where they would normally fit their coffees. He nods, and Kurt continues.

"And the people—in Ohio you could just look around and say—aha," he jabs the air, pointing, "there's a person who stands out, who's being bullied, who's fat, who stutters, who's in a wheelchair. They've been through what I've been through. Chances are, we could be friends. But in New York, _everyone_ stands out, so no one does."

Kurt watches the road for a while, and then signals to turn onto the exit for the highway, heading back towards Lima. "And everyone's a bitch, too."

Blaine smiles. "Not as much as you are, though."

Kurt rolls his eyes. "Oh, I don't know. Santana gives me a run for my money. I think the city's going to be good for her." He lets his hand rest on the inner console too, and Blaine takes a risk, takes a chance, and twines their fingers together. Kurt doesn't object, but he doesn't participate, really either—he just lets his fingers stay where Blaine's put them.

Kurt lets out a sigh. "I don't know, B." Blaine feels a small thrill whenever Kurt calls him that, but he tamps it down. "I keep trying to talk to people about this. It feels strange. I know I went to New York for a reason, and now I'm there, at NYADA, and that makes sense. Fall was—" he stops. "Fall was like Sex in the City. There were parties—not like, weird bad parties, but parties with fancy clothes, and I was going into Manhattan all the time and getting cocktails and Isabelle was like Carrie Bradshaw except without the voiceover and also less frazzled and more of an artist and more of an adult—I just sort of got swept up in it, which was easy, and awful, I know, for you."

Blaine can see him gripping the steering wheel tighter, and he lets his thumb press and sooth against Kurt's skin.

His cheek clenches, and he releases it. "But now. Now this is what I want. This is what I asked for. This is the type of thing I _do_ and yet there are some days that I can hardly get out of bed. And I—I don't know who to be friends with and who to not be friends with," he says in a rush, "Rachel says the Adams Apples are dumb but at least they're underdogs, I understand underdogs; I feel like an underdog; and Adam's like the _head_ underdog—"

He stops speaking, just staring at the road. He shakes his head and huffs out a sigh. "I don't know how to say it. I feel like I'm whining. I've been given this great opportunity. I know that."

Kurt turns, suddenly, and Blaine blinks. "I'm sorry," he says, "am I babbling, do you not want to hear any of this? We should talk about you. Tell me about being president. You did it, you did what I couldn't do, of course, you did it, I knew you could—"

Blaine puts up his hand, the one he doesn't have interwoven, still, with Kurt's. "Kurt. Stop. We'll—" he pauses, thinking for a half second, staring out at the snow over the fields of broken off bits of corn stalks, and then says the most obvious thing. "Let's go get coffee. We'll have time before Friday night Dinner."

Kurt stiffens, momentarily, and then slumps a little and says, "Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Yes. That sounds. Good."

Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand, his thumb picking up the soothing motions he'd been doing before. "So why are there some mornings you can hardly get out of bed?"

He sighs and takes his right hand out of Blaine's to smack it against the steering wheel. "I don't know. I don't know; I don't know. Everything's supposed to be right. I'm not being bullied, except for NYADA bitches, but I can handle them—it's just trash talk. But people—I guess people are mean everywhere. Adam's an ally but I just—I just. I just."

And he's breathing through his nose and won't say anything else. A truck passes them on their left, blaring down on them, and Kurt frowns, looking up through the window, edging further over to the right of the lane until the truck passes.

Blaine stays quiet until Kurt's breathing settles a little, thinking about what to say. Kurt says, finally, "I know, it's stupid. I need to just deal."

"No, No. Hey. I've just been thinking. Look. You're in a new place, right?" and Kurt looks at him, back and forth from the road to him. "I was thinking about when I first got to Dalton. Do you know how long it took me to really feel comfortable there? I felt awful, too, because here was this great place, this bully-free zone, and Wes was so kind to me, inviting me to hang out with him and Jeff, but I just couldn't like, get in the groove or something. I couldn't like, accept that we were actual friends. I kept thinking about my old friends, even though my old school had been horrific—" he's watching the skeleton trees go by, the fields, the barns, some of them collapsing, decrepit. He's reading the billboards and the speed signs, the sun glinting off the metallic guard rails, off the snow cover that's thicker in some places than others.

Kurt makes a noise, and Blaine continues. "It took me a good year to feel comfortable there. To feel like I had friends there. And I was in the Warblers, I was the lead Warbler, and I know they accepted me, they loved me, but I felt like maybe they shouldn't, like I was false, somehow, like one day they were going to see that I was this scared little kid."

"So what happened? How did you snap out of it?" Kurt's biting his lip again, and Blaine turns and sees the kid on the stairs, the kid about to cry about the bully at school—his skin red and a little patchy, his nose flaring, his eyes red rimmed, but the blue of the irises brilliant and startlingly bright.

"Time," he says, although his voice is rough, and Kurt looks back at the road, "Time. It takes time to get comfortable. And it takes trust, too. You have to feel comfortable and confident where-ever you are. It takes small steps, like winning Midnight Madness" He pulls Kurt's hand off the steering wheel and kisses the back of it. "Congratulations, by the way—like finding people like Adam, like the other people to add to your group. And then there will be more days you want to get out of bed for. And if there aren't—then you need to tell me. Or tell someone that you're still feeling that way. Because that's a bigger problem."

Kurt nods, and says in a small voice, but slightly relieved, "So I'm not crazy."

"I sure hope not. I mean, is it excessive? Can you get things done? Are you able to go out and have fun with people?"

Kurt frowns, nodding. "I think so. Yes. It's just that sometimes I'm by myself, on the street and I just feel so gloomy. But then I'll have a fun movie night with Rachel, or I'll do something right in dance class, or I'll skype or text with you and things will be good again."

Blaine breathes out, a soft sigh. "Kurt." He wants to say something about how he's ridiculously in love, still, with this man, who for some bizarre reason needs him just as much as he does. "You're. Jeez."

"I'm a mess, I know." Kurt takes the exit for Lima.

"Not what I was going to say," Blaine hums as they take a couple turns to get to the Lima Bean.

Stepping out of the car with Kurt, at the Lima Bean, seems fresh and memory all at once, and Blaine sucks in his breath against the onslaught of every feeling hitting him together. He looks over at Kurt but he's composed, scuffing his boot against the asphalt.

It's nice to not talk for a minute, to let the smell of salt and snow, of fresh air, and then of warmth, of coffee beans, of people, settle into their conversation. It's nice to just be them, without talking. Kurt chuckles softly and bumps him lightly on the back when he orders their coffees without asking what Kurt wants, because he already knows, and then goes and grabs their normal table.

Once they're seated Kurt cocks his head to the side and Blaine thinks, _here it comes. _"So—what _about_ you?"

"hmm?" he looks up from adding cinnamon to his coffee see Kurt looking at him, his skin even again after the high emotion of the car ride, smooth and silky. "What about me?"

"Is senior year everything you wanted it to be?"

He's out of his mind. Senior year's been awful. "What? How is that even possible?" Kurt lifts his shoulders. "No, it's not," Blaine clarifies, setting his coffee cup down precisely, on the table, trying not to sound bitter. "We—You're not here. And then we lost sectionals because we don't have the voice power—I don't care if Marley did pass out on stage, we just weren't as good. And yeah, the Warblers were on," he brushes his hand in the air "whatever they thought they needed to get by, but even if we'd somehow beaten them—we're just not as good this year, without you and Rachel and Mercedes and Santana. God, even Quinn."

He feels something nudging against his foot. It's Kurt, who won't really hold hands with him here, but can accidentally rub ankles. He lets their socks rest together.

"But you're president. That's something."

"They don't listen to me. I—I. They all wanted to throw a Sadie Hawkins dance; well, Tina wanted to throw a Sadie Hawkins dance, so that she could ask me, I guess, and I didn't want to, but they bowled me over. I have very little say, ultimately." He rubs the pad of his finger against the fake wood grain of this table.

Kurt says, "What?" and Blaine looks up to see Kurt looking appalled, "You don't' get to like, bang on a gavel or something and just lay down the law?"

Blaine squinches up his eyebrows and rubs his finger a little bit harder against the grain—really, this is probably just plastic. "This isn't Dalton. I'm not Wes. Or—I'm not you. I can't just shriek 'we will not do a Sadie Hawkins Dance! Rah!' and have that be it. I like agreeing with people too much. Or—something. I don't know. It's really frustrating. Because on the one hand, people listen to me, they follow me, but then on the other hand they—"

"They blow right past you and do whatever the hell they want anyway. I know." Kurt's nodding.

Blaine pauses. "Yeah. I even. I even said no to Tina. I said no, that I didn't want to go to the dance with her, but then we went together anyway. She like, made it just friends, but obviously now I know she wanted it to be more. It's like I can't get people ever to just _listen_ to me, and _do_ what I _want_ them to do." He looks at his lap, feeling hot and choked for the first time in a long time that he can remember at someone other than his family. He's used to feeling this way about his family—at his mother, and father, and brother—his fucking brother. But not other people.

Kurt says, "Blaine, look at me."

When he does he realizes he's almost folded completely in half in his seat. He straightens his back and smoothes out his face. "I'm not _angry._ I'm not—"

"It's ok to be angry about it. I was angry _for _you. I was so—" Kurt cuts off, but makes an aggravated growling noise.

Blaine gives him a twist of a smile. "I'm only—ok, _maybe _I'm a little bit. But that's only because I feel like I'm just waiting for the year to end. Once the year ends I can—" he pauses. They haven't discussed whether it would be all right for him to actually go to NYADA since Christmas. "I can go to New York. And start my adult life. I like Marley and Jake," he leans forward, resting his chin in his hand, and his other forearm on the table "—not really Kitty but I don't think anyone likes Kitty, but it's hard to care when you know that you're going to pack up and leave soon." He pauses and Kurt doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything positive or negative about New York, so he continues. "And on the other hand I'm _not _angry about it _because_ I'm waiting for the year to end, too, because they don't—err, really matter. Tina's not really my Rachel."

He feels Kurt make slow rubbing motions against his foot. "Rachel is something all her own."

Blaine snorts. "Yeah. You're really the only one—You're the only one." He says, on the end of a breath, and then he straightens up, dropping his hands to his lap.

Kurt doesn't say anything for a while, and then he inhales deeply. "You and Sam, though?"

"Oh! Oh. Yeah. Yeah. He's great." Blaine nods, tucking his chin into his chest. "I rely on him a lot. but I don't know if that will end after this year-I mean, I think we'll have different lives. That's ok, but I don't know if we'll stay best friends. He's not my Rachel, either."

Kurt's quiet for a minute, gently rubbing their socks together. Then he says, "I had a crush on him when we first met, did I tell you that?"

Blaine whips his head up. "What?"

"He was so cool, and he dyed his hair, and he was fine with dueting with me—and those lips. God, those lips."

Blaine lifts his hands up. "Right? I know! When they do impressions? Did he ever come to school in nothing but board shorts? My god I almost came in my pants."

Kurt lifts his eyebrows, "Something you want to tell me, Blaine?"

Should not have said that last part, probably. "What? Oh. Nothing. Nothing I want to tell you. Absolutely at all."

Kurt's got a funny smile, now, and Blaine's not sure if it's an upset smile or an 'I actually find this funny' smile. "Come on, this is share and care time."

"I don't think this is relevant, we were talking about you not getting out of bed."

"I may not get out of bed," and here he leans forward and hisses, "if I'm imagining you _jacking off _to fantasies of Sam."

Blaine rolls his eyes, "Oh yeah, Mr. Adam's Apples. That's a real threat. What I do and who I fantasize about are apparently none of your concern."Kurt tries to pull his food away but Blaine reaches out with his foot and snags it back quickly, drawing it under the center of their table. It makes them both look like they're struggling a little bit to stay afloat, to stay in their chairs, and when they're through Blaine gives a triumphant smile. Then he lets out a breath. "You had a crush on him, I had a crush on him. That's all. He was close by, and we were getting to be good friends, and he's attractive. Sam couldn't possibly hold my interest in the long term, but he's a good friend, and I'm lucky he's around because I was a mess when. Well."

Kurt makes a noise in the back of his throat and turns to look out the window.

Blaine thinks he said something wrong, but it was the truth and he can't help it. "Kurt. Look. You're with Adam. You're exploring. And that's good, I think, ultimately. I think—I think it's been good for me, this year, being apart from you, even though I hate it. Because I am attracted to Sam. Because now I know that he's not enough. That in fact no one is enough. In fact," Blaine takes a deep breath, "I don't know if you want to hear this, but you're really the _only_ one who's enough."

Kurt's still doing that angry hissing thing. "But Blaine, Sam is—Sam. He believed in the _Mayan Apocolypse._ Of course he isn't enough. What if you find—I mean, there are a thousand me's. You get to NYADA and you find out that there are a—" Blaine can't help himself. The idea of a thousand Kurts is laughable, so he starts laughing, and Kurt gets this confused and suspicious look on his face, all narrowed eyes and pursed lips, like he thinks Blaine might be plotting. "What?"

Blaine is still chuckling. "Kurt?" he says, "That's ridiculous. Are there a thousand kids who know as much about fashion and singing _and_ car maintenance as you? Who can sing high and low? Who are as comfortable being silly as you are? Who are as flexible and demanding as you are? Who are as loving as you are? Who love _me _as much as you do?" Kurt does not answer. "No. No. There are not. There is only one man like that, and he is right here."

Blaine realizes that Kurt might turn away from him for this. He's never been very good at taking compliments, even though he craves them. But it's just—after last night. How could he not. How could he not. How could he not.

* * *

Blaine comes to Friday night dinner, and fits in like he always has. It's a boisterous meal, with Kurt and Finn joshing each other, and Sam and Blaine throwing inside jokes around (Kurt eyes Sam and Blaine and sees the straight-boy bro-mance way they interact. He's surprised by the flare of possessive happiness that he doesn't see anything else). The whole time Kurt can feel a tight, knowing energy between himself and Blaine even though they don't speak to each other much; they're sitting next to each other, like they always used to, and that's enough. Burt doesn't say very much, but he does say, "It's great to have all my boys together again, at the same table," about half way through, and a minute later Blaine sneaks a hand to Kurt's, under the table, and squeezes it.

After dinner's over, when he's about to leave, Blaine puts on his jacket at the door while Sam and Finn are cleaning up the dishes, and Burt and Carol are in the TV room, and says, with that low, earnest, baritone rumble of his, "Things that are worthwhile are going to be hard," It comes almost out of nowhere, a reference to their earlier conversation. "And they're going to feel uncomfortable. I think it's ok that you're not completely happy in New York, yet." He brushes some lint off Kurt's sleeve, and runs a hand up his arm to settle it around his neck, thumbing gently at the skin just at his nape. "I mean," he says, softly, "I want you to be happy there, and I think you will be, but I think it's a gradual process. But you're so strong, Kurt. You're lonely, now, but that—that won't be forever."

Kurt looks at Blaine's soft, brown, almost hazel eyes, and kisses him softly, softly, just a pale ghost of their touches earlier that afternoon in the theater. When he pulls back he says, exhaling through his nose, "I'm messing everything up with you, I think, but I don't know how to stop." He kisses him once more, and then says, "Take me to the airport tomorrow morning?"

Blaine clenches his jaw once, then nods, and presses a hard kiss to his lips. Then he's gone, leaving a blast of cold air in his wake.

* * *

They get coffee before they hit the airport. It's not the Lima Bean, it's some chain, so they feel like they can't have a private conversation. They find the most tucked away corner they can find and it still feels like all eyes are on them. They chat for a couple minutes, but then they fall silent.

Blaine swallows, then asks, "What did you mean, you're messing everything up with me?"

Oh. Kurt didn't expect him to ask that. "Oh. I don't know. Were you up wondering all night?"

"No—What did you mean? You meant something." Blaine is frowning.

Kurt idily spins the wooden mixer for his coffee. "I mean-You and I. You know that I love you, but I don't know if it's enough." He looks out the window.

"Kurt—"

He snaps his head back, and says in a rush, "What if I go and start this all back up again and then it's not enough and you feel—and then it happens all over again? What then? I don't think I could handle it again. I couldn't. I couldn't; it would—"

Blaine says, through clenched teeth, "It's not going to happen again."

"Maybe not that _thing_, particularly, because I'm not asking you to keep defending yourself, I'm _not_, really, but those feelings, feeling left behind, feeling like I'm not hearing you—feeling like I didn't care—what if those feelings come back? Like last year, when we stopped talking, before I graduated—especially when we're not in the same place, I can't even try to help, even try to make it better."

Blaine takes Kurt's hand, patrons of the chain be damned. "Kurt. Do you know what makes me feel kept in the loop? When you text me about how you feel about, I don't know," his other hand flutters toward the window, "someone's shirt, or the something your professor said. Last fall you stopped doing that. And when you did talk it wasn't to ask me for my opinion, or asking about my day, it was just a steam rolling train that I could either be flattened by or let pass me by. Do you know how we've been talking recently?"

Kurt shakes his head, and Blaine takes his phone out and scrolls through his recent texts. "'Oh god, please tell me you have five minutes to talk, I just got done with the worst class and I need you to help me feel better," he raises his eyebrows at Kurt.

"Well, I think that's explanatory." Kurt lifts his chin, a little.

"Here's another: 'Why is Finn the one telling me about you in Adam Lambert clothes? Pictures, please! Also—any word on that Calc test yet?' or how about, 'How cold does it have to be for long johns to be required?' Kurt—" he holds his phone screen up to Kurt, almost as evidence, "these are texts asking for my opinion first, coming to me first, making me feel like I'm someone important in your life, even though I'm ten, fifteen hours away."Blaine's eyes soften. "That's what all I want. That's what didn't happen last fall."

Kurt looks down at the table, feeling even more frustrated. "But I don't know when I'm doing it! That's—it's not conscious!"

"Yeah. But they never said that relationships didn't mean work, that communication didn't mean work. I have to sometimes remember to compliment you more, because while I may _think_ those things, I don't always _say_ those things out loud."

And Kurt pushes grains of sugar around on the table, thinking, wondering, confused. Love should be, sometimes is, a brush of the finger tips. Or it should be, sometimes is, a hot sweaty roll in the hay. So what is it now?

In the car they're silent, but when Blaine puts his hand on the center console Kurt entwines their hands immediately, as if he were waiting for it.

At the airport Kurt parks them in short term parking and Blaine comes into the front terminal with him, helping him with his bags, fussing with his coat, looking like he's trying not to focus too hard at anyone thing. He's also running at the mouth, talking about the new show about three guys looking for love, and how it's really just a classy version of The Bachelor, and who do they think they're kidding, and you don't just find love that way, it's not about looks, or abs, or a few lousy dates, loves about something more, something deeper that can't really be found on camera like that, right, c'mon-At some point Kurt stops him, pulls him over to where there's a corner and a fake ficus tree in rough proximity, and puts his hands on his shoulders.

"Ok. Ok. Ok. Blaine." Blaine exhales, roughly, and he continues. "I can't, I can't make any promises, and I can't start anything now. That's not fair to you, and it's not fair to me. I think we were gloriously stupid this weekend, even though I wouldn't take it back—" he grins and Blaine grins too, shifting his weight onto the other foot and blushing a little. "But we are friends. We're friends first. Best friends. Always best friends. And I think. You're right. About those texts. I think that's important."

Blaine nods, he nods like his head's on a spring, and Kurt finally catches his chin in his hand and lifts it so they're looking each other in the eye. Blaine's eyes are glinting, glimmering, like he's close to crying, so Kurt closes his eyes and presses their foreheads together.

"Jesus, Blaine. Jesus."

And Blaine wraps his arms around Kurt, and they stay that way for a good thirty seconds until a family, the mother in a brown spangled sari and the smallest daughter in a pink spangled dress, wander maybe ten feet from them, and they step back, flushed. The two sons are arguing about which ninja turtle is better, the mother is telling everyone to keep hold of their own things, and the daughter is saying, "Look! Look!" before she does a cartwheel. The father says, exasperated, "make her stop that right now, we are in an airport."

The daughter says, "But Dora does it all the time! In the jungle, in the desert, EVEN in the airport!"

The mother shakes her head and leans close to her to whisper something and the girl pouts and folds herself into a bizarrely twisty position on the ground, and the mother huffs out a sigh before collecting her and trying to keep everyone together, despite their disparate desires.

Blaine shakes a little before stepping back, hands going to his pockets, to his coat. "Right. You have your tickets."

Kurt looks at Blaine, remembering him dribbling an imaginary basketball, and thinks that Blaine would let his daughter do cartwheels pretty much anywhere—in the jungle, in the desert, probably in the airport, too. "Yeah."

"And. And you have your wallet. And your coat. And you brought three bags and you are taking away three bags—" Kurt can see him counting, just to make sure, "And you have the Simone Rocha scarf, right? I saw it in your closet the other day. But if you don't have it, it's ok, I'll send it to you. If you forgot anything I'll just send it to you, so don't worry, just don't worry."

But Kurt lifts up his chin again and folds him once more into a hug, a tight embrace, burying his nose into Blaine's neck and squeezing him. "Blaine, Blaine. When am I going to see you again?"

"Soon, I hope, soon."

"Soon."

Blaine watches Kurt walk away—he's checked one bag and is taking two carry-ons with him—and lets the knowing where Kurt is feeling stretch out as long as possible before it fades, snaps, and then he's just sitting in an airport with no one around.

He gets up and forces himself to walk back to the car, the car that smells like Kurt. When he's home he lets himself cry, a little, and then he does some homework, even though most of that time is spent daydreaming, remembering.

But half way through the afternoon he gets a text, and then another, and then another.

**Sat near a woman who smelled like feet, and not the nice kind. Am buying both of us pumice stones ASAP JIC—O.O**

** Wait. You never explained WHY Sam came to school in board shorts? Pictures?!**

** Btw: your workout regime is doing incredible things for every part of you. It's no wonder I couldn't keep my hands off. ;-)**

** And Sam said you can do a full lotus? Pictures?! **

** We didn't talk about Santana and Quinn at all. I heard they hooked up at the wedding! (Not as hot as us.)**

** P.S. you were wondering about trade secret dance moves. I haven't learned any. If I do I'll get back to you. **

** Oh and—you talked to my father about sex before we were dating? What the WHAT?**

So Blaine calls him and says, "Which do you want me to answer first?"

And Kurt says, with the sound a loudspeaker blaring and honking horns in the background, "Oh god, clearly the Santana/Quinn thing—I'm not sure I'm ever ready to know how you talked to my father about sex. Ever."

And Blaine laughs, and homework is forgotten.

* * *

_There it is! Happy reading! Let me know what you thought in the comments! _


End file.
